The Sun Also Rises Characters: Complete Analysis

Jake Barnes is an American journalist living in Paris who narrates the novel. He suffered a genito-urinary war wound that renders him sexually impotent, though Hemingway never describes it explicitly. He loves Lady Brett Ashley but cannot be with her because of his injury. Jake works professionally, maintains friendships, and tries to live with dignity despite devastating circumstances.

Jake embodies Hemingway's "grace under pressure"—maintaining composure and decency when faced with impossible situations. He helps Brett even when it hurts him, works professionally despite personal tragedy, and never complains explicitly about his wound. His narration is controlled and understated, exemplifying the iceberg theory by rarely stating what he feels.

Jake's love for Brett is the novel's central tragedy. They love each other genuinely, but his war wound makes physical relationship impossible. Brett says she can't live with him without that—though the novel suggests deeper emotional barriers too. Jake becomes her confidant and helper even while watching her with other men, which tortures him but he does it anyway because she asks. This dynamic—loving someone you can't have, helping them despite the pain—defines Jake's entire existence.

Jake represents the Lost Generation man whose war wound has made traditional masculine roles impossible. He can't be lover, warrior, or father. His literal emasculation symbolizes the broader emasculation of a generation. But Jake also represents the best response to this damage: maintaining dignity, helping others, developing expertise (afición for bullfighting), and enduring with grace rather than collapsing into self-pity or rage like Cohn.

Brett is an English woman in her early 30s, nominally engaged to Mike Campbell but having affairs with Robert Cohn, Pedro Romero, and emotionally involved with Jake. She has short hair "brushed back like a boy's," drinks heavily, and participates in male spheres as equal. She represents the 1920s "New Woman"—sexually liberated, rejecting traditional femininity, refusing to be possessed by any man.

But Brett is also deeply unhappy. She loves Jake but won't/can't be with him. She's marrying Mike though she doesn't love him. She pursues men she doesn't want while avoiding the one she does. Her liberation brings no fulfillment—she has freedom but no purpose, autonomy but no direction, sexual power but emotional emptiness.

Brett's only unselfish act is leaving Pedro Romero. She tells Jake: "I'm not going to be one of those bitches that ruins children." She recognizes that her chaos would destroy Romero's youth and talent, so she leaves him despite her desire. This shows self-awareness—she knows she's destructive—but it doesn't lead to change. She'll still marry Mike though she knows she'll be miserable. Knowledge without capacity for lasting change is its own trap.

Brett embodies the New Woman's contradictions: sexually liberated but emotionally trapped, asserting autonomy while remaining dependent on male attention, challenging traditional femininity while suffering from her own rebellion. She's Hemingway's ambivalent portrait of female liberation—both exciting (agency, sexual freedom) and self-destructive (instability, inability to commit or build anything lasting).

Robert Cohn is a Jewish American writer, former middleweight boxing champion at Princeton. He's the group's outsider—mocked for his Jewishness, his earnestness, his romantic delusions. He models his worldview on The Purple Land, a Victorian adventure romance, which Jake says is dangerous to take seriously. Cohn actually believes in romantic love, adventure, and meaningful passion—making him pathetic in the group's cynical eyes.

When Brett dismisses their San Sebastian affair as meaningless, Cohn can't accept it. He follows her to Pamplona, lurks around desperately, and finally snaps—punching Jake, Mike, and Romero, then crying and apologizing. His emotional display and inability to maintain dignity violate every aspect of Hemingway's code.

Cohn is othered for being Jewish and for clinging to romantic delusions the group rejects. Mike's cruelty toward him is explicitly antisemitic. But Cohn also represents pre-war Victorian masculinity that no longer works—he believes in honor, romantic conquest, meaningful suffering. The Lost Generation knows these are delusions. Cohn's inability to adapt to post-war cynicism makes him both sympathetic (he's genuine in a false world) and pathetic (he can't see reality).

Cohn represents romantic delusion versus Jake's stoic realism. His failure shows that believing in Victorian romance in the post-war wasteland only brings humiliation. But Hemingway's portrayal is problematic: making his negative example explicitly Jewish reveals antisemitism, suggesting Jews are incapable of the WASP masculine restraint Hemingway valorizes.

Pedro Romero is a 19-year-old Spanish bullfighter who embodies Hemingway's masculine ideal: grace under pressure, authentic expertise, courage combined with artistry. He fights bulls with pure technique and bravery rather than crowd-pleasing tricks. Jake has afición (true passion and understanding) for bullfighting, which is why he recognizes Romero's authenticity versus Marcial's showmanship.

Brett seduces Romero, and Jake facilitates it despite the pain of watching. Romero represents vitality and purpose the Americans lack. When Brett leaves him to avoid "ruining children," it's acknowledgment that the Lost Generation's damage is infectious—they destroy what's healthy by contact. Romero survives Brett and returns to bullfighting, proving he has something the others don't: genuine calling and uncorrupted skill.

Romero represents what Jake and his cohort can never be: authentically masculine, possessing real expertise, having purpose. He's what Hemingway's code looks like when achieved rather than struggled toward. But crucially, the Americans can only watch, not become him—he's not their culture, not their skill. This is devastating: Hemingway shows his male characters the ideal but they can't achieve it, only admire it from distance.