Summary: Chapter I
[Cohn] learned [boxing] painfully and
thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness
he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
The novel begins with Jake Barnes, the novel’s narrator
and protagonist, describing Robert Cohn. Cohn was born to a wealthy
Jewish family in New York. At Princeton, Cohn faced rampant anti-Semitism.
To minimize his feelings of inferiority and to combat his shyness,
he threw himself into boxing, becoming the university’s middleweight
champion. He married very soon after his graduation, on the rebound
from his unhappy college experience. He and his wife had three children.
Cohn lost most of his fifty-thousand-dollar inheritance, and, after
five years, his wife left him, just when he had made up his mind
to walk out on her. After the divorce, Cohn moved to California.
There, he began spending time with a literary crowd, and he soon
began backing a magazine. While in California, Cohn became involved
with Frances Clyne, a manipulative status-seeker. When Cohn’s magazine
failed, Frances persuaded Cohn to take her to Paris to join the
postwar crowd of expatriates.
During his time in Paris, Cohn has few friends, one of
whom is Jake. Cohn takes up writing while in Paris, and finishes
a novel. As Frances begins to age and starts to lose her beauty,
her attitude toward Cohn changes from one of careless manipulation
to fierce determination to make him marry her. Jake first becomes
aware of Frances’s attitude while he dines one night with her and
Cohn. Cohn suggests that he and Jake take a weekend trip. Jake suggests
that they go to Strasbourg, in northeastern France, because he knows
a girl there who can show them around. Cohn kicks him under the table
several times before Jake gets the hint and notices Frances’s look
of displeasure. After dinner, Cohn follows Jake to ask why he mentioned
the girl and explains that Frances will not permit him to take any
trip that involves seeing a girl.
Summary: Chapter II
Nobody ever lives their life all the
way up except bull-fighters.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
That winter, Cohn travels to New York to find a publisher
for his novel. There he gains new confidence. The publishers praise
the novel, and several women are “nice” to him. He also wins several hundred
dollars playing bridge. This success, combined with reading a romantic
chronicle of an English gentlemen traveling abroad, infects Cohn
with wanderlust. Upon returning to Paris, he comes to Jake’s office
to persuade him to travel to South America with him, offering to
pay for the entire trip. He worries that he is not living life to
the fullest. Jake responds that only bullfighters live their lives
“all the way up.”
Tired of Cohn pestering him in the office, Jake invites
Cohn downstairs to have a drink. Jake knows that once they finish
the drink it will be easier to get rid of Cohn. At the bar, Cohn
continues to harangue Jake about traveling outside of Paris. He
complains that he is tired of Paris and the Latin Quarter. Jake
asserts that Cohn’s discontent has nothing to do with geography,
saying, “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place
to another.” After the drink, Jake says he needs to return to the
office to work. Cohn asks if he can sit outside in the waiting room.
Jake allows him to, and, after he is finished at work, he and Cohn
have a drink and watch the evening Parisian crowd.
You can’t get away from yourself by moving
from one place to another.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Analysis: Chapters I–II
That Jake begins his story by talking about someone else—Robert Cohn—reveals
his observer mentality. Jake frequently chooses to speak about other
people rather than himself. Often the only means of gaining insight
into his character is to read his reactions to other characters.
In typical fashion, his portrait of Cohn indirectly reveals aspects
of Jake’s personality that he does not mention straight out. He
states that he likes Cohn, but his description of Cohn has a patronizing
tone. He describes Cohn’s confrontation with the anti-Semitic atmosphere
at Princeton, but his sympathy is tainted with a trivializing attitude,
perhaps pointing to a latent anti-Semitism of his own. Hence, we
learn that Jake does not respect Cohn. He regards him as a somewhat
pathetic, ignorant, and inexperienced man. Jake’s disdainful attitude
toward Cohn may stem from the fact that Cohn never fought in World
War I. Jake also characterizes Cohn as shy and insecure and subject
to the control and manipulation of women. This characterization
of Cohn as weak reveals Jake’s unspoken anxiety regarding his own
masculinity.
Cohn worries that he is not living his life the way he
ought, but he cannot figure out what is lacking in his life. Like
many characters in the novel, he fixates on travel as a solution
to his feelings of discontent. Jake, however, realizes that Cohn’s
unhappiness stems from his personality and lifestyle, and that these
will hound him wherever he goes. Cohn’s travels, Jake understands,
would be as aimless and unfulfilling as his life in Paris. Typically,
however, Jake offers no alternative solution to Cohn’s dissatisfaction.
Instead, he asserts that only bullfighters live their lives to the
fullest. He implies that nearly everyone suffers from Cohn’s feeling
of discontentment, and that Cohn must learn to live with it. Throughout
the novel, Jake demonstrates an ability to identify problems but
an inability to solve them.
