Basic Plot Summary-
Hemmingway, through the perspective of Jake Barnes, the narrator and central figure in the rest of the book, begins the plot of The Sun Also Rises with an extensive biography of Robert Cohn. Jake explains that Cohn was an ex-boxing Jewish man who attended Princeton and now worked as a journalist in Paris at the same company as Jake. Jake tells how Cohn was married for five years and had three children by a wife that would eventually run off with a miniature-painter. Cohn became the sole editor of a magazine of the arts and enjoyed the authority involved until the magazine became too expensive and he had to give up the job. The plot gets rolling when Barnes suggests to Cohn a vacation of sorts to Spain to go fishing and hiking. The trip is meant to get Cohn away from his controlling fiancée Frances, who had attached herself to Cohn when the magazine was promising and had a mind to marry him now that it wasn't.
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Jake in reflectionThat winter, Cohn went to America to have his novel published. While he was there, he created a stir and was treated nicely by several women. When he came back he broke off his relationship with Frances. He had had an awakening of sorts and had realized Frances flaws. With Cohn's awakening came an air of pomposity. He became rather unpleasant to have around and began to read books "sinister if read to late in life". It was these books that led Cohn to try to convince Jake to going to South America. Jake would not agree to go.
Jake goes to a party and meets a relation, Brett, whom he met while in the war; she is described as "Damn good looking". While at the party,