Who is Robert Cohn?

Robert Cohn is an American expatriate and former Princeton middleweight boxing champion who becomes a writer and a dependent figure in Paris. He wants emotional certainty and meaningful attachment—first to Frances and later to Lady Brett Ashley—and seeks change through travel, books, and a finished novel. In Paris he funds and edits a short-lived review, spends time reading and boxing, and drifts between dependence on Frances and a desire for independence. Cohn presses Jake to go to South America, travels to Europe where his novel is accepted, and eventually joins Jake and Bill for a trip to Pamplona. His intense attachment to Brett and his awkward, stubborn pursuit of her produce conflict with the group: he is taunted by friends, publicly humiliated during fiesta episodes, and finally physically beaten in confrontations involving Mike and the bull-fighters. Cohn repeatedly alternates between hopeful pursuit and humiliating retreat, revealing his vulnerability and the social friction his earnestness causes among the harder, more cynical expatriates.

In the book: Robert Cohn is a wealthy American expatriate and aspiring writer whose insecurity and romantic idealism set him at odds with the hard‑boiled, disillusioned circle around him. As a Jewish outsider and former Princeton boxing champion, he embodies both strength and vulnerability, and his intense attachments—especially to Lady Brett Ashley—become a catalyst that exposes tensions, values, and fault lines within the group.

Personality

Insecure: Jake recounts that boxing quelled Cohn’s feelings of inferiority after being treated as a Jew at Princeton and describes Cohn as shy and dependent on Frances (Chapter 1).
Romantic: Cohn repeatedly presses Jake to take a saving trip to South America and later pursues Lady Brett with intense longing, showing his belief in travel or a relationship as redemption (Chapters 2, 5, 13).
Stubborn: He insistently asks Jake to join his plans and refuses to back down in confrontations over Brett, even when taunted at the Café Select and during the fiesta (Chapters 2, 6, 15).
Physically capable: He is introduced as Princeton’s middleweight boxing champion and later endures physical fights in Pamplona, demonstrating both past and present physicality (Chapter 1; Chapters 17–18).
Naive: Despite warnings and teasing, Cohn invests emotional faith in Brett and Frances, failing to read the group's cynicism and exposing himself to humiliation (Chapters 1, 6, 16–17).

Character arc

Cohn enters the story as a recently validated writer and ex-boxer seeking to fill a persistent sense of lack. Early chapters show him clinging to Frances and trying to expand his world with travel and literary success, which gives him temporary confidence but also makes him less pleasant to his acquaintances (Chapters 1–2). As the group assembles for the Pamplona trip, his awkwardness around Brett becomes increasingly visible: he alternates between hopefulness and defensiveness, is teased and taunted by others (Chapter 6), and grows progressively isolated. During the fiesta his emotional pursuit of Brett culminates in public confrontations—first social humiliation and then physical beating—after which he breaks down and announces he will leave (Chapters 15–17). Though he briefly seeks reconciliation, the pattern of pursuit followed by humiliation remains; by the end of the Pamplona sequence he is shattered socially and emotionally, having failed to secure the attachment he sought and exposed the fragility of his attempts to belong to Jake’s harder, more cynical circle (Chapters 17–19).

Robert Cohn in pictures

The party sits in a sun-drenched café on the square, heat shimmer on the bridge behind them as streets are being sprinkled; wicker chairs, pigeons and yellow sun‑baked houses frame the scene. Jake points out a huge cockroach on the parquet and, matter‑of‑fact, brings his shoe down on it while Bill and Cohn look on with a mix of amusement and disgust.

Inside the dim, incense‑scented cathedral Jake kneels at a wooden prie‑dieu, forehead on the rail, praying in a warm shaft of colored light from a stained glass window. The vast pillars and shadowy worshippers recede behind him, conveying both piety and his private, drifting thoughts.

At the frontier stream a small bridge divides France and Spain; French kepis and Spanish carabineers exchange passports while an old, sunburned man with a long staff and a kid lashed to his back is waved away. The chauffeur folds papers in the background as Jake and the others watch the quiet, almost theatrical border routine.

The closed car winds up a white dusty Col, the road switchbacking along a barren ridge; the driver honks as two donkeys sleep in the road and the party peers out across brown, furrowed mountains and distant pine forests. Dust rises in the sunlight and the landscape opens into long ridges and valleys, the car tiny against the sweep of Spain.

The car rolls into the hot square before the Hotel Montoya; boys crowd around, flags droop in the heat, and the white concrete bull‑ring looms in the bright sun. Montoya greets them enthusiastically under the arcade, helping with the bags while shade promises relief from the plateau's glare.

Night at the plateau station: Jake and an unbearably nervous Cohn squat on a baggage‑truck as the distant headlight climbs the hill and the train pulls in, empty of the friends they hoped for. Faces in the small crowd flatten into disappointment; later, back at the hotel, the terse telegram reading 'Stopped night San Sebastian' is handed to Jake, a small paper that suddenly reshapes the evening.

Relationships

Jake Barnes Jake is Cohn’s friend and narrator who observes, tolerates, and sometimes rebukes Cohn while trying to mediate his conflicts with the group (Chapters 1–5, 13–19).
Frances Clyne Frances is Cohn’s controlling former lover whose exploitation and demand for marriage shape his dependency and later departure to Europe (Chapter 1; Chapter 6).
Lady Brett Ashley Brett is the object of Cohn’s intense attachment and pursuit, which provokes jealousy and conflict within the group and triggers Cohn’s humiliation in Pamplona (Chapters 5, 13–19).
Bill Gorton Bill is a companion on the trip who teases and provokes Cohn but also travels and drinks with him, sharing experiences in Spain (Chapters 8–13, 15–19).
Mike Campbell Mike taunts and provokes Cohn about Brett and eventually becomes the target of Cohn’s anger, culminating in physical confrontation and ongoing antagonism (Chapters 13, 15–17).
Pedro Romero Romero is the young bull-fighter who wins Brett’s admiration and whose presence heightens Cohn’s rivalry and humiliation during the fiesta (Chapters 15–18).

Quotes by Robert Cohn

“For God’s sake," he said, "why did you say that about that girl in Strasbourg for? Didn’t you see Frances?”
Chapter 1A tense line revealing Cohn’s anxiety about Frances’ jealousy and her hold over him.

“Would you like to go to South America, Jake?”
Chapter 2Cohn 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.”
Chapter 2Cohn expresses the core of his restlessness and the motivation behind his desire to travel and change his life.

“You say such damned insulting things, Jake.”
Chapter 5Cohn reacts angrily to Jake's comments about Brett, showing how Jake's bluntness wounds others.

“You’re really about the best friend I have, Jake.”
Chapter 5After the argument, Cohn quickly forgives Jake and expresses deep dependence, exposing his emotional vulnerability.

“You’re awfully funny, Harvey," Cohn said.”
Chapter 6A brief line showing Cohn’s uneasy, almost stunned politeness in the face of Harvey’s provocations.

Why Robert Cohn matters

Cohn embodies the novel’s tensions around outsider status, misplaced romanticism, and the clash between earnest longing and hardened postwar cynicism. As a Jewish, emotionally earnest ex-champion who seeks validation through love, travel, and art, he exposes the group’s cruelty and the limits of camaraderie; his humiliations reveal how the expatriate circle polices belonging and masculinity. Cohn’s arc highlights themes of displacement, the destructive effects of idealized love, and how social marginalization and insecurity produce conflict rather than integration in a world scarred by disillusionment.

Chapters with Robert Cohn

More The Sun Also Rises characters

Jake BarnesNarrator
Lady Brett AshleyMajor character
Mike CampbellMajor character
Bill GortonMajor character
Frances ClyneMinor character
MontoyaMajor character
Pedro RomeroMajor character
Wilson-HarrisMinor character

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