The Sun Also Rises Chapter 4 Summary

Summary

Jake and Brett travel through Paris by taxi after a dance. In the cab they sit apart, then briefly kiss; Brett recoils and declares she cannot bear to be touched, pleading that Jake understand and insisting she cannot go through “that hell” again. They argue about love, guilt, and past wounds; Brett oscillates between drawing close and pushing away. The taxi takes them to the Café Select where Brett greets acquaintances from the dance—Zizi, Count Mippipopolous, and the Braddocks—and recounts a row she caused earlier. Jake declines drinks and arranges to meet Brett the next day.

After returning to his flat, Jake checks his mail, notes his bank balance and a wedding announcement, and reads the bull-fight papers. He muses about his wound and his feelings for Brett before falling into fitful sleep. At about half-past four Brett, drunk, wakes the concierge and insists on seeing him. She tells Jake about the Count offering money and invitations, about being in love with Jake and yet knowing she will not go away; she is impulsive, contradictory, and alternately distant and intimate. Brett leaves in the Count's limousine; Jake watches her go, pours away her remaining drink, and goes to bed feeling both hardened and painfully affected by her departure.

Key events

1. Taxi ride: Jake kisses Brett; she recoils and says she cannot stand being touched.
2. They agree awkwardly to see each other but argue about love, guilt, and past wounds.
3. At the Café Select Brett greets Zizi and Count Mippipopolous; Jake declines drinks and leaves.
4. Jake returns home, checks mail and finances, reads bull-fight papers, and thinks about his injury and Brett.
5. Brett, drunk, wakes Jake at 4:30 a.m.; she recounts the Count's attentions and leaves in his limousine.
6. Jake pours away Brett’s unfinished drink and goes to bed feeling emotionally raw.

Analysis

This chapter intensifies the central emotional tension between Jake and Brett: their physical closeness repeatedly collides with an inability to sustain intimacy. Hemingway uses sparse, restrained dialogue and short, concrete details (taxi routes, café names, times) to ground psychological turbulence in everyday actions. The taxi and later the Select function as liminal spaces where public performance and private feeling intersect—Brett is alternately flirtatious and self-protective among acquaintances, revealing her restless search for affirmation. Jake’s interior narration supplies stoic self-control punctured by recurrent vulnerability; his late-night inventory of mail, money, and papers underlines practical isolation and the small, quotidian anchors of his life.

Symbols and motifs appear subtly: night and artificial lights mirror shifting visibility of emotions; the limousine and Count Mippipopolous introduce monetary power and the possibility of escape for Brett, complicating moral judgment. The morning-after visit dramatizes Brett’s impulsive destructiveness and Jake’s role as the steady witness, reinforcing themes of wounded masculinity, shame, and the cost of desire. Structurally, the chapter moves from public scenes to intimate domestic space, guiding readers from surface social banter to the private consequences of the characters’ entanglements. Hemingway’s technique—lean prose, repeated small gestures, and unadorned psychological exposition—makes the tensions feel immediate and unresolved.

Important quotes

“Don’t touch me," she said. "Please don’t touch me.”

Lady Brett AshleyBrett recoils when Jake kisses her in the taxi, declaring her distress and inability to bear touch.

“I’ve never let you down, have I?”

Lady Brett AshleyBrett asks this at the Select to reassure Jake and to smooth over their strained good-byes.

“To hell with Brett. To hell with you, Lady Ashley.”

NarratorJake briefly lashes out in private after seeing Brett's social ease with titles and attention, revealing conflicting anger and pain.

Characters in Chapter 4

• Jake Barnes
• Lady Brett Ashley
• Count Mippipopolous
• Zizi
• Braddocks
• Mrs. Braddocks
• Frances Clyne
• Robert Cohn
• Mike Campbell
• Georgette
• Concierge
• Mr. Aloysius Kirby
• Mrs. Aloysius Kirby
• Katherine