The Sun Also Rises

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay. 

Scaffolded/Short-Answer Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the below bulleted outlines. Cite details from the novel over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. The title of the novel is the first part of the text we experience. In this case, “the sun also rises” is from a Bible verse which reads: One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

• What is the meaning of the title? (topic sentence)
• What particular moments, scenes, or lines of dialogue from the novel directly connect with the title? Identify at least three instances when this occurs.
• In your concluding sentences, describe how the title relates to modernism and the lost generation.

2. The friendship and enmity between Jake and Cohn drives much of the tension in the novel.

• Is Jake or Cohn the more sympathetic character? (topic sentence)
• How are Cohn and Jake alike, and how are they different? Identify at least two significant character traits for each man and compare the characters, focusing on the traits you have identified.  
• In your concluding sentences, describe how the more sympathetic character influences the reader’s perception of the story and how the book might be different if the roles were reversed.

3. All of the main characters (Jake, Brett, and Cohn) are expatriates, as are their friends (Mike and Bill). Their foreignness often marks them as different from the local people.

• How does the characters’ self-inflicted exile contribute to their feelings of dissatisfaction and indifference? (topic sentence)
• Where do these characters seem to feel most at home, and where are they more acutely aware of their foreignness? Identify at least three places in the novel where a character makes a cultural comparison or passes judgment on a cultural practice, and explain its significance.
• Why doesn’t Jake return to Paris at the end of the novel? In your concluding sentences, describe how Jake’s sense of “home” has evolved throughout the book.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. When Bill and Jake are fishing, Bill says to Jake, “Sex explains it all” (chapter 12). Use this quote to explore how conventional conceptions about masculinity and femininity manifest throughout the book. Important things to consider include Brett’s behavior, Jake’s impotence, Jake’s night with Georgette, Jake’s friendship with Bill, Jake’s admiration of Romero, Cohn’s obsession with Brett, Mike’s relationship with Brett, and Romero’s relationship with Brett, among other tensions in the friend group. What themes emerge from these relationships, and what is the novel ultimately saying about gender, sex, and love?

2. Jake explains that a bullfight has “a definite end” rather than being merely “a spectacle with unexplained horrors” (chapter 13). With this idea of a spectacle of horrors in mind, identify the most violent scenes in the novel and explain how they contribute to the book’s themes. Consider not only the violence in the bullring, but also the physical and verbal violence among the characters. Though the war looms heavily over the novel, the characters never directly speak about the violence they saw there. Why can other types of violence be portrayed, while that violence remains unspoken?

3. What is the climax of the novel? Identify three possible scenes that could be said to serve as the novel’s peak and discuss why those scenes are moments when the main conflict is at its peak tension. Is the central conflict between Jake and another character, or between Jake and himself, or something else? How does the final scene offer resolution of the climax, or is the final scene the climax itself?

4. Alcohol flows freely throughout the book. What role does alcohol play in the characters’ lives, and what are its larger thematic implications? Discuss both the characters who do drink and the one character who does not. Do the characters each use alcohol for a different purpose, or are they all drinking for the same reason? How is Jake’s getting drunk at a bar in Paris different from Jake’s drinking with Bill on the fishing trip? Additionally, why are the words “blind” and “tight” used in the novel when drinking is discussed? And on the novel’s closing page, why does Brett tell Jake, “Don't get drunk . . . You don't have to”?

5. Cohn is a complicated figure in the novel. His name opens the book, and his departure comes on the heels of a physical altercation with Romero, who has vowed to kill Cohn if he doesn’t leave town. He is often the target of verbal abuse, antisemitism, and mean jokes. Why is Cohn “othered” within Jake’s group of friends? Why do people—his fiancée included—speak so cruelly to him? Why does Cohn tolerate so much mistreatment, and why does he ultimately choose to fight Romero rather than Jake or Mike? What are the consequences of his outdated ideas about love and romance in a post-war landscape? Where is he portrayed as a sympathetic character, and where is he portrayed as merely pathetic? What does he represent in the novel?

6. There are many pairs of opposites in The Sun Also Rises: for example, Spain and France, wild partying and boredom, the country and the city, Brett and Jake, Jake and Romero, bullfighting and war, pleasure and pain, drinking and sobriety, wine and blood, and bankruptcy and extravagance. Choose one of these pairs to explore in an essay that elucidates a theme from the book. Identify meaningful similarities and differences and elaborate on the significance of those comparisons for understanding the work.