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Robert Cohn in 'The Sun Also Rises': A Failure of Vision

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Robert Cohn in 'The Sun Also Rises': A Failure of Vision

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"Cohn's abject failure as a human being is basically a failure of vision. His refusal to conform in this 'society' of expatriates does not indicate the strength of his individuality but, rather, his weakness and his lack of insight" (Van Horn)
"Cohn fails to recognize, as they do, the erosion of traditional values and institutions or the necessity for self-disciple in a world where man's life is meaningless beyond the transient order the individual can impose"
"The same factors that lead him to pursue Brett also blind him to the values that Hemingway affirms within the novel"

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"Hemingway constructs the ideal of masculinity without explicitly describing it"
"Robert Cohn is set up as an outsider and, therefore, his actions represent those that are contrary to ideal male actions"
"Robert allows himself to be possessed and exploited by a woman who, we discover, has very little real affection for him"
"If we were to construct a man who had none of the flaws that Jake Mike, Robert, and Romero had, he would be a model of Hemingway's ideal of masculinity. He would be dominant in relationships, would be able to fulfill his sexual duties, and would keep relationships from becoming too serious. Instead of giving us a simple example of the ideal man, Hemingway portrays him through the flaws of others"

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In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway portrays an ideal of masculinity through the absence of an ideal man. He uses Jake, Mike, Robert, and Romero all as examples of men who are less than perfect, especially in their relationships with Lady Brett Ashley. By displaying their flaws in the men's interactions with Brett, Hemingway constructs an ideal of masculinity without explicitly describing it.

Jake Barnes, our castrated narrator, is the most obvious example of what the ideal man is not. At the end of the novel we learn how much control Brett holds over him when Jake responds to her telegram with, "Well, that meant San Sebastian all shot to hell. I suppose, vaguely, I had expected something of the sort" (243). Not only does he abandon his relaxing vacation because of Brett's unidentified trouble; he expects to have to do so. Also, Jake's castration coincides with his feelings towards Brett. While lying in bed and thinking about the injury, his mind wanders to Brett. "I started to think about Brett... and my mind stopped jumping around and started to go in sort of smooth waves. Then all of the sudden I started to cry" (39). Thoughts of his castration lead to thoughts of Brett, which in turn, lead to emotional disappointment at his inability to fulfill the sexual role of the typical man.

Brett's fiancé, Mike Campbell, is shown to be too submissive to Brett in his refusal to condemn her adultery. Throughout the novel, Mike knows about sexual encounters that Brett has with other men but chooses not to do anything about them. All he does is drink and try to forget that the problem exists. At one point, when angered with Robert, he asks, "What if Brett did sleep with you? She's slept with lots of better people than you" (146). Mike acknowledges that he knows his fiancé sleeps with other men and, furthermore, he does not seem to care. He says later, sitting at the same table, "Mark you. Brett's had affairs with men before. She tells me everything" (147). It sounds at first as if Mike accepts Brett's misbehavior, but a closer examination reveals that he instead just tolerates it because he is not capable of making her quit. The entire time we see Mike in the story, he is completely drunk. His drinking seems to be a way for him to escape the problems that he has with Brett. Rather than taking the dominant role in the relationship and making things go the way he wants them to, Mike passively accepts Brett's misbehavior and drinks to forget about it. We are led to believe by Hemmingway that the ideal man would not let his woman go around with random men, but would instead dominantly reserve her for himself.

Throughout the story, Hemingway makes it clear that the ideal man is nothing like Robert Cohn. We immediately are told of his "inferiority and shyness" that he feels because of the way he was "treated as a Jew at Princeton" (11). Robert Cohn is set up as an outsider and, therefore, his actions represent those that are contrary to ideal male actions. He, at the beginning of the novel, is dating Frances, a woman whose "attitude toward [him] changed from one of careless possession and exploitation to the absolute determination that he should marry her" (13). Robert allows himself to be possessed and exploited by a woman who, we discover, has very little real affection for him. Later in the novel, he becomes more despicable through his incessant chasing of Brett. They go on a casual weekend getaway, but he refuses to let it end at that. Instead, he follows the entire group, including Brett, to Pamplona and brags of his brief relations with her. Sitting in a café, Mike says to him, "Tell me, Robert. Why do you follow Brett around like a poor bloody steer? Don't you know you're not wanted?" (146). Hemmingway, through Mike, attacks the way that Robert follows Brett around and does not let a relationship go when it is over. The way in which Robert Cohn lets women become too dominant in his life is not a trait of the ideal man.

Romero, the bullfighter, is a final character that becomes involved with Brett and, in doing so, displays less than ideal manly characteristics. Like the others, he lets Brett become dominant and tries to make their relationship too serious. At first, he is very ashamed of Brett's short hair and wants hr to grow it out, but she refuses and he accepts her refusal. Brett says to Jake, "He wasn't ashamed of me long" (246). Romero is willing to be laughed at by his friends because Brett will not grow her hair out in a womanly way. Then, Brett tells Jake, "He wanted to marry me" (246). Even though he cannot get her to change her hair for him, Romero wants to marry Brett. He accepts Brett's dominant role and tries to move a casual relationship to marriage much too quickly. These, again, are not characteristics of the ideal man.

If we were to construct a man who had none of the flaws that Jake, Mike, Robert, and Romero had, he would be a model of Hemingway's ideal of masculinity. He would be dominant in relationships, would be able to fulfill his sexual duties, and would keep relationships from becoming too serious. Instead of giving us a simple example of the ideal man, Hemingway portrays him through the flaws of others.

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In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway portrays an ideal of masculinity through the absence of an ideal man. He uses Jake, Mike, Robert, and Romero all as examples of men who are less than perfect, especially in their relationships with Lady Brett Ashley.

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The Hemingway documentary overall has a lot of good material to work off of, and specifically in episode two when they talk about what bullfighting meant to Hemingway, and thus to Jake.

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"Jake Barnes is so obsessed and passionate about bullfighting because of its inherent art of predestination, something he has witnessed so often in the war" (Hemingway ep. 2 around 15:00)

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Hemingway, a three-part, six-hour documentary film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, examines the visionary work and the turbulent life of Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest and most influential writers America has ever produced. Interweaving his eventful biography - a life lived at the ultimately treacherous nexus of art, fame, and celebrity - with carefully selected excerpts from his iconic short stories, novels, and non-fiction, the series reveals the brilliant, ambitious, charismatic, and complicated man behind the myth, and the art he created.
Premiere date: April 5, 2021

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Hemingway | Ken Burns | PBS | Watch Hemingway | A Documentary about Ernest Hemingway by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick | PBS

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Hemingway, a three-part, six-hour documentary film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, examines the visionary work and the turbulent life of Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest and most influential writers America has ever produced.

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This article points to the ways in which Hemingway viewed bullfighting, and how this man was the absolute ideal modern man. He did not flinch at the sight of death, only made it artistic, and his use of Barne's afición plays into how Hemingway toys with replication and idealization

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"It consisted of one paragraph, entitled 'The first matador got the horns,' and it reaveals his interest in the suffering, pride, and persistence of the artist, in the implacability of the enamorous beast that he faces, and in the different response of 'the crowd' to the various events in the bullring" (127)

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This article shows the parallels between Jake Barnes and Robert Cohn, which points to the idea that one is being used as an example and the other, not so much. The example would be Robert Cohn, where his ideal form puts Jake's lackthereof on display.

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'The Sun Also Rises': Hemingway and the Art of Repitition

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'The Sun Also Rises': Hemingway and the Art of Repitition

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"With its astute psychoanalysis of Jake and Cohn and the lost generation reaching in one direction, and its biblical title, epigraph, and allusions reaching in the other, The Sun Also Rises creates nothing less than a theory of the relationships between and among the psychological, biblical, historical, and literary texts which, in Hemingway's view, stand behind human, and especially American, experience" (322)
"The story of Cohn represents not only the most extended example of Jake's failed art, but also the most fully developed authorial revision of Jake's story. In Jake's story, Cohn, like the young men and Marshal Ney, is (among other things) a projection of self. And Cohn's story–the story of the American dream and its failure–is one that also reflects the story of the heroic volunteer in the war to end all wars, Jake Barnes." (322)

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'The Sun Also Rises'- Hemingway and the Art of Repititon

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How is the depiction of Robert Cohn representative of the ideal modern man? In what ways does Cohn’s character contrast Pedro Romero, and what role does passion play in modernity? Is Robert Cohn being depicted as a man corrupted by modernity? In his descriptions of Robert Cohn, how is Hemingway pushing forward the ideal of masculinity portrayed through Jake Barnes’ adoration for bullfighting?