The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Discussion Questions
1. The novel opens with two contrasting epigraphs: One from Gertrude Stein about the “Lost
Generation” and another from Ecclesiastes about regeneration. How do these two quotes affect
our understanding of The Sun Also Rises?
2. Hemingway begins the novel with a description of Robert Cohn rather than the protagonist, Jake
Barnes. How are the two characters similar? How are they different? How does Cohn function as
a foil for Jake throughout the novel?
3. Although World War I is rarely mentioned in a direct way, nearly every character in the novel is a
veteran of it. How has the experience of war shaped these characters? Why is Jake’s emasculating
wound such an effective symbol? How are the nonveterans like Cohn and Romero different from
those who were in the war? How did the war wound Brett?
4. How does Jake’s narration influence how we understand the events of the story? Is he a faithful
narrator?
5. When Jake and Bill walk during the Paris evening looking at Notre Dame, watching young
lovers, and savoring cooking smells, Jake asks whether Bill would like a drink. Why does Bill
respond, “No...I don't need it”?
6. The week during which Jake and Bill are fishing in the small village of Burguete is one of the
most peaceful and pleasurable times described in the novel. How does Hemingway convey this?
How do their conversations in Burguete differ from those they have in Pamplona during fiesta
week? How do Cohn’s, Mike’s, and Brett’s absences from the fishing trip set them apart from
Jake and Bill? Why is the Englishman Harris included in the Burguete scene?
7. Jake silently criticizes Robert Cohn for allowing himself to be controlled by his girlfriend,
Frances. Jake is also disgusted with Cohn’s unrealistic, romantic devotion to Brett. How would
you describe Jake’s relationship with Brett? Does he love or understand her? Is his view of Brett
constant? How does he see her at the close of the novel? What does he mean when he says, “Isn't
it pretty to think so,” when Brett tells him that they “could have had such a damned good time
together”? Would Jake and Brett be with each other if not for Jake’s wound?
8. The Sun Also Rises describes members of what Gertrude Stein called “The Lost Generation.”
Although none of the characters speak openly about feeling lost, how does Hemingway show us
that they are? What details in the novel convey their aimlessness and postwar cynicism? If
Hemingway's novel is about “the lost generation,” do we conclude that all five of the people who
have gone to Pamplona are lost? Is there evidence that moral or spiritual cleansing ever takes
place in the novel?
9. Charges of sexism are often leveled at Hemingway’s writing. What, if anything, in The Sun Also
Rises might be considered sexist? Are the female characters stereotypes or are they complex?
10. Hemingway goes to great lengths to describe the bullfights in the novel, giving the reader vivid
descriptions and blow-by-blow accounts. How does this add meaning to the novel? What are the
metaphorical and symbolic implications of bullfighting?
11. In Paris, Jake drinks Pernod, imitation absinthe (Beginning of Chapter III with Georgette); in
Pamplona he drinks actual absinthe (End of Chapter XVIII with Bill). How do the two drinks
symbolize the two places?
12. In Chapter 14, Jake says “You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way
into things that I liked.....Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing
when you had it.” What role does money and payment play in understanding the characters?
13. What does Mike Campbell’s story about borrowing war medals from his tailor say about his
character?
14. Why is Brett attracted to the young bullfighter Pedro Romero? Why is he intrigued by her? Why
won’t Brett grow her hair long for Romero? Why does Montoya frown upon Jake’s friends
socializing with Montero?
15. Why does Cohn want to “rescue” Brett? How does she treat him? How is he treated by the other
members of the ex-pat community? Does he deserve their contempt? How is Cohn’s boxing
different from Romero’s bullfighting?
16. What role does religion play in the story? Jake says he is a rather poor Catholic, but he does go to
churches deliberately to pray, not just for himself, but for all those he knows, including Cohn,
who is a rival and whom he does not particularly like. How would you characterize Jake’s faith?
His morality? What about the morality of other characters?
17. How would you describe Jake? How does his injury influence his perception of the world and of
those around him? How does he cope with it? How does he differ from his friends?
18. Is there a hero in this story?
About the author
Ernest Hemingway was born July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. After graduation from high school, he
moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked briefly for the Kansas City Star. Failing to qualify for
the United States Army because of poor eyesight, he enlisted with the American Red Cross to drive
ambulances in Italy. He was severely wounded on the Austrian front on July 9, 1918. Following
recuperation in a Milan hospital, he returned home and became a freelance writer for the Toronto Star. In
December of 1921, he sailed to France and joined an expatriate community of writers and artists in Paris
while continuing to write for the Toronto Star. He began his fiction career with "little magazines" and
small presses, which led to a volume of short stories, In Our Time (1925).
His novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) established Hemingway as one of
the most important and influential fiction writer of his generation. As a journalist he covered the Spanish
Civil War, portraying it in fiction in his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, (1940), and World War II. He
often wrote about trout fishing, bullfighting, big-game hunting, and deep-sea fishing, as well as the
cultures of the regions in which he set his work—France, Italy, Spain, Cuba, and Africa. The short novel
The Old Man and the Sea (1952) earned him the Pulitzer Prize and was instrumental in his being awarded
the Nobel Prize in 1954. Hemingway published seven novels during his lifetime (another three were
published posthumously), as well as volumes of non-fiction and several short story collections, including
Men Without Women (1927) and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938).
On July 2, 1961, Hemingway committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. He was suffering from
the genetic disease hemochromatosis, in which the inability to metabolize iron culminates in mental and
physical deterioration, and had been hospitalized several times due to paranoid behavior.