Motivation

The motivation in the novel is clearly love. That seems to be Brett's reason for existence, or so she thinks, and it surrounds her and many of the men in the book. First, she loves Jake. They have their past, but she's tried to move on. So then there's Mike. She says she loves him, and they plan to get married after she is divorced from her current husband. Then Cohn comes along. Brett and Cohn have a little "fling" in San Sebastian which means nothing to her and everything to him. And then he knocks out half of their "friends" because he wants to be with her. And finally, Romero. On page 220, Jake narrates "...he [Romero] loved Brett. Everything of which he could control the locality he did in front of her all that afternoon." He wanted to show off for her and prove his love/worth to her. All of this begs the question "Does Brett really love anyone?" But I suppose that as long as the men think they're in love, it's all the same to her.

An Idea Within an Idea! *voice of Guiness man* Genius!

In the middle of my last post, I realized that Hemingway used a cliche early in the novel! The cliche is more of a concept than a phrase because Hemingway doesn't say it directly; he hints at it. When Robert Cohn meets/sees Brett, he is immediately interested in her. On page 30, Jake narrates: "Dancing, I looked over Brett's shoulder and saw Cohn, standing at the bar, still watching her." And this after he asked her twice to dance. Creeper! But through Jake's eyes, we see the cliche: love at first sight. I think it still counts as a cliche even though it's a concept rather than a phrase, but I could be wrong. Anyway, the concept of "love at first sight" has been used over and over again throughout literary works and even in real life for years. It's so corny now that people laugh at it, but Hemingway cleverly disguised it so that readers would take the novel seriously.

Foil! But Not the Math Kind...Or the Kitchen Kind.

For hating Cohn so much, I sure do talk about him a lot, but all he's good for is being analyzed. He and Jake are foils, especially when it comes to Brett. Brett and Jake clearly have a past together. All their talk of "Don't you love me?...Isn't there anything we can do about it?" (p. 34) makes that very obvious for the reader. However, Cohn seems to fall in love with Brett immediately upon seeing her, and feels the need to know everything about her. Idiot makes the mistake of asking Jake, and that sets the jealousy ball rolling. As a side note, did Cohn's reaction to Jake's less-than-nice explanation of Brett make anyone else think "Hey! She's a nice lady!"? A Hangover quote is always necessary...lightens the mood. Kind of like "Why so serious?". Who can be serious after that? But seriously, both Jake and Cohn want Brett. They use different methods to show that, though. Jake is thoughtful and careful about the feelings of his and Brett's friends, so he's quiet about his "relationship" with Brett. Cohn, however, brags to everyone about San Sebastian, beats up a bull-fighter, and publicly worries/asks/talks about Brett. Jake's behavior makes Cohn seem incredibly annoying and overbearing while Cohn's actions make Jake seem too shy and soft-spoken.

Why Didn't I Think of This Before?!

Cohn and Brett are actually really similar! At first, it seemed as though Brett and Cohn weren't very similar at all. Brett liked to party with whomever she pleased, and Cohn was "whipped" and following Frances around like a duckling follows its mother. They really are alike, though! Okay, so both of them had failed marriages. Robert Cohn's wife left him "just as he had made up his mind to leave his wife" (p. 12), and on page 207, we learn that Brett's ex-husband "used to tell her he'd kill her." So that explains part of their messed-up-ness. Additionally, (check out that transition! it's pretty, right?) they've found new significant others with whom they appear to be happy. But at the beginning of the novel, Cohn and Frances fall apart, and towards the end, Brett and Mike begin to fall apart. While they come from similar pasts, they both act very different, but they still have serious issues when it comes to relationships.

Paris to Pamplona

As I stated in a previous blog, it seems like the characters in the novel don't even like Paris. They all talk about how dirty it is and how they get sick of the town itself. However, everything is good in Paris for everybody. They party and sleep around (cough cough...Brett...cough cough), and no one gets in fights or gets "sore" as they say in the book. Their descriptions of Spain make it sound as though the grass is greener there. (I wish that counted as another lit term blog for "cliche"...sad face.) They talk about how beautiful the countryside is when they're on the train, and places are described as "nice" and "very clean" like on page 96. But once they all arrive in Spain, things go downhill fast. Mike gets mad at Brett, everyone now publicly despises Cohn, and no one can stay sober for more than five minutes. I don't understand how a place that seems to be all-around better than Paris in the opinions of the characters can be the center of so much more turmoil.

And The Sun Is Still Rising...

Ahh, the wonders of summer reading...at the beach. It's not as cool as it sounds. I promise. I figured I ought to focus on a literary term for blog numero dos and try my hand at a different kind of analysis, so here goes nothing. Hemingway chooses to teach the reader about Robert Cohn through indirect characterization. Throughout the entire novel, other characters' thoughts and conversations about Cohn lead the reader to believe that he is an annoyance to his companions. Cohn's interactions with Brett show that he is relentless and oblivious. He clearly is not wanted and refuses to accept that fact which almost makes him seem oblivious to it. He also seems very impulsive, and he has quite the temper. When he hits Jake and attacks Pedro Romero, he immediately apologizes and wants to shake hands like on page 205 when Mike tells Jake "Then Cohn broke down and cried, and wanted to shake hands with the bull-fighter fellow. He wanted to shake hands with Brett too." This leads the reader to believe that he often acts upon his anger without thinking. He seems desperate for affection and acceptance, and both evade him. I can't tell if Hemingway wants the reader to pity Cohn or be annoyed with him. I'm definitely going the annoyed route. He bugs the living daylights out of me, and I don't feel any pity for him. He creates his own problems and then whines about it to everyone when he can't fix/deal with them. And so ends blog two.

My First AP Lit Blog Post! and Chapter One

I started reading early June-ish, so I've had some time to think about the majority of the book for a while, and the first chapter still confuses me. The way the novel begins, the reader is made to believe that the main character is Robert Cohn. By the way, I don't like him at all. If that bias shows through in my blog posts, I sincerely apologize, but I simply do not like him. Anyway, the first sentence on page 1, "Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton", implies that the novel is about Cohn, a former boxing champion. As I read further in the chapter and the book, I realized that this fact is a reference to his personality. He seems to enjoy picking fights with the other characters, and the statement which begins the novel is meant to be a hint for the reader, almost a forewarning of the mayhem he attempts to cause. His relationship with Frances is also confusing. At one point, it seems as though he is, for lack of a better term, "whipped," and I find it odd that he, who enjoys disagreements, strives to be agreeable with her. And after all that confusion, I was/am further confused by the fact that he really doesn't even like her that much. Sounds to me like he's trying to be a ladies' man, and it really isn't working out for him.