Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews October 1, 2023 September 24, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
You see, he was so busy all the time that we were living together, writing on this book, that he doesn’t remember anything about us. So now he’s going out and get some new material.
Frances gives Jake her perspective on why Robert has decided to leave her. Frances suspects that Robert wants freedom from their relationship when he returns to New York so that he can meet someone new. Early in their affair, Robert would do anything for her, but now she believes it's her turn to be rejected. Robert lost interest in her and needs fresh experiences.
But I couldn’t live quietly in the country. Not with my own true love.
After Jake suggests to Brett that they go off in the country and live together, Brett says no and explains why. Brett needs sexual relationships, and Jake cannot perform sexually. She sees a domestic partnership lived in isolation as a no-man’s-land between intimate love and no love at all. Instead, Brett plans to marry Mike, move to San Sebastian, and never see Jake again.
I had the feeling as in a nightmare of it all being something repeated, something I had been through and that now I must go through again.
Jake expresses a moment of clarity as a feeling of
“Certainly like to drink,” Bill said. “You ought to try it sometimes, Jake.”
Bill recommends his reliance on inebriation as a method of dealing with life’s challenges. In Jake’s world, people drink alcohol, or “get tight,” to address their feelings of sadness and loss of connection. As a consequence, the characters in the story drink nearly incessantly. They stop at bars and cafés to fortify themselves or grease social interactions, drinking to excess as a substitute for purpose.
It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening.
Jake muses about the familiar sense of foreboding that hangs over the argument between Robert and Campbell. The war, particularly for Jake, always looms in the background. Feelings of emptiness and helplessness pervade every chapter in the book. Here, Jake recognizes the persisting effects of such emotions. This scene approaches the story’s highest tension, or climax, symbolized by the bullfight. Readers sense that the tangled bonds of the companions will soon unravel.
I stood up. I had heard them talking from a long way away. It all seemed like some bad play.
Robert Cohn has just beaten up Jake and left him with Mike and Edna. Here, Jake comments on the action as an outsider looking in. As he compares the scene and dialogue to a bad play, he attempts to articulate the strange disorientation he feels throughout the novel. At this moment, his physical sensation mirrors his emotional and spiritual disillusionment. The violence must have brought back his war experiences and left him feeling not only physically beaten but also mentally and spiritually utterly isolated.
Please wait while we process your payment