What happens in Book I, Chapter 2 of The Sun Also Rises?
Book I, Chapter 2 begins with Jake Barnes and Robert Cohn having a drink at a café. Cohn, feeling restless and unfulfilled after his boxing career fizzled out and his life in Paris stagnated, suggests they travel to South America together. Jake shoots down the idea, unwilling to indulge Cohn's romantic fantasies. The talk shifts to Frances Clyne, Cohn's domineering girlfriend, and Jake can’t hide his disdain for her. Cohn's obsession with W. H. Hudson's The Purple Land comes up as an important point: he’s so taken by the book's themes of adventure and masculine conquest that he confuses its fiction with a real-life plan. Jake, as a more experienced expatriate, sees right through Cohn's pretensions. The chapter wraps up with the two men going their separate ways, their differing outlooks already stark and irreparable.
Analysis
Hemingway uses Chapter 2 to create a subtle yet precise character study, highlighting the novel's central tension between illusion and disillusionment through the contrast between Cohn and Jake. Cohn's idea to escape to South America isn’t just a whim; it reflects a man who has handed over his identity to literature, particularly to Hudson's adventure novel filled with romantic ideals. Hemingway's critique is sharp: Cohn reads The Purple Land "as a guide-book to what life holds," which strongly condemns a certain kind of literary naivete. Jake's flat refusal shows the weight of a man already stripped of illusions by war, and Hemingway presents this contrast without commentary, trusting the dialogue's brevity to convey the message.
The café setting—becoming the novel's go-to backdrop—serves as a stage for performance and self-deception. Cohn exudes vitality while Jake feigns indifference. Frances Clyne lingers as a structural presence even in her absence, her influence over Cohn highlighting his passivity. Hemingway's writing here is typically concise, but the tone is subtly sardonic: Jake's internal thoughts have a dry precision that hints at the novel's ironic mode. This chapter also introduces the theme of displacement—characters searching outside themselves for what they cannot find within—which will resonate throughout every journey the novel explores.
Key quotes from Book I, Chapter 2
“He had been reading W. H. Hudson. That sounds like an innocent occupation, but Cohn had read and reread 'The Purple Land.' 'The Purple Land' is a very sinister book if read too late in life.”
Jake reflects on Cohn's literary obsession, framing Hudson's romance novel as the root of Cohn's dangerous romanticism.
“I do not believe he thought about his clothes much. Externally he had been formed at Princeton. Internally he had been moulded by the two women who had trained him.”
Jake's characterization of Cohn exposes the passivity beneath his surface confidence, establishing him as a man shaped entirely by outside forces.
“"Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it?"”
Cohn presses Jake with the novel's defining existential anxiety, a question Jake's silence and manner answer more eloquently than any rebuttal.
Check your understanding
Ask about this work
The reader has this chapter in front of it — the summary, the analysis, the key quotes and the vocabulary — along with the rest of the book’s chapters. Ask what happens and why it matters, or push back on a reading.
It cites the chapter or the line it is working from, and it says so plainly when the guide doesn’t cover something. It’s instructed never to write an essay, a paragraph or an answer for you to hand in, and never to grade anything — it will show you how to approach the question instead.
Sign in to ask the reader about this work — 1 credit a message.
Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Book I, Chapter 2
- sinister
- Quietly dangerous or corrupting in its influence, not obviously evil but capable of leading a person badly astray. Here it describes a book whose romantic ideas are harmful when read at the wrong stage of life.
- moulded
- Shaped or formed someone's character and personality over time, the way a sculptor shapes clay. The British spelling signals the influence of the women in Cohn's life.