The Sun Also Rises Chapter 2 Summary

Summary

Robert Cohn has returned from America after his novel is accepted and after a period of flattering attention; the narrator explains how this success and new social experiences have altered Cohn’s manner and confidence. For years Cohn’s life has been limited to his wife Frances, but praise from publishers, winnings at bridge, flirtations in New York and a newly discovered taste for W. H. Hudson’s The Purple Land expand his horizons and make him less pleasant to be around.

Cohn visits Jake Barnes at the newspaper office and repeatedly presses him to go to South America, convinced such a trip will save him from the sense that life is slipping by unused. Jake resists — he prefers Paris, doubts travel will change a man’s inner condition and teases Cohn about taking books as guides to life. Cohn’s fervor, stubbornness and romantic illusions become clear in the café and the office; he falls asleep in Jake’s outer room, mutters in his sleep about inability to act, then the two go out to the Café Napolitain for drinks and to watch the Boulevard crowd, leaving the tension unresolved but showing Cohn’s longing and Jake’s world-weariness.

Key events

1. Narrator summarizes how Cohn returned from America changed after novel’s acceptance
2. Explanation of factors: praise, women’s attention, bridge winnings, and reading The Purple Land
3. Cohn asks Jake to go to South America and pressures him persistently
4. Jake argues travel won’t fix Cohn’s inner problem and defends staying in Paris
5. Cohn falls asleep in Jake’s office, mutters about inability to act, and they go to Café Napolitain

Analysis

This chapter develops Robert Cohn as an outsider whose romanticism and insecurity set him apart from Jake’s disillusioned, pragmatic circle. The narrative uses Jake’s wry, observational voice to explain Cohn’s change without endorsing it, which establishes Jake as a grounded, ironic narrator and shows Hemingway’s technique of indirect characterization: Cohn is revealed through anecdotes, others’ reactions and his own speech rather than overt authorial judgment. The Purple Land functions as a symbol of literary romanticism that distorts Cohn’s expectations; reading it late in life is shown to be dangerous because it supplies false scripts for action. Themes of dislocation, the limits of travel as a solution to inner malaise, and masculinity (bridge winnings, bravado, and the contrast with bull-fighters) are introduced. The scene structure — office, bar, café — grounds the conversation in everyday settings that contrast with Cohn’s dream of exoticism, foreshadowing conflicts between idealized adventure and the characters’ more worn reality. Dialogue-driven exposition and restrained emotional detail keep the reader close to Jake’s perspective and set up Cohn as a catalyst for future tension in the group.

Important quotes

“Would you like to go to South America, Jake?”

Robert CohnCohn bluntly proposes a joint escape to South America, revealing his yearning for adventure and impatience with Paris.

“I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.”

Robert CohnCohn expresses the core of his restlessness and the motivation behind his desire to travel and change his life.

“Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters.”

Jake BarnesJake dismisses the idea that ordinary men can achieve a fully lived life, contrasting Cohn’s romantic illusions with brutal realism.

Characters in Chapter 2

• Robert Cohn
• Frances Clyne
• Jake Barnes
• Editor
• Publisher
• boy
• W. H. Hudson