But why was the sun also rising?

I am quite puzzled by the title of this book, The Sun Also Rises. The sun plays absolutely no part in the novel. No one really shines or rises or anything like that. I can't think of a metaphor involving the sun, so I am lost. Considering my confusion, I did a bit of research to try to find out the meaning behind the novel's title. I did find out that the original title of the novel was Fiesta. This is actually the title used in the edition in several foreign countries. That title makes sense. They went to a fiesta in Spain for the climax of the novel. So why would Hemingway change the title?
I also found out that the title is a quote from the Bible. The passage talks about generations coming and going and the sun rising and falling and rising again in the same place. I think that Hemingway chooses this passage to show how no matter what happens to a person, they will end up right back where they started. This happens to Jake and Brett in the novel and it happens to every person in their life. Hemingway's novel is about character development, and he shows this through the title.
As the count said on page 67, "that is the secret, you must get to know the values." Hemingway tells us what a good and decent person looks like, but we must figure out how to make that a part of our lives.

Looking back...

This book has been a very interesting one. It started off talking about Cohn, and it seemed that he would be the main character. That quickly turned and the novel went from there. The main point of the novel seems to be that of character developments. There wasn't really a main character, but rather a group of main characters. My personal favorite character was Bill. He didn't really fit in, but he didn't try to. He just sat back and watched all of the other characters make a fool out of themselves. He didn't rock the boat, and he knew his place and stayed there. I respect that kind of person. He was who he was and didn't try to change that to feel more comfortable.
My least favorite character was Mike. He had no self-respect whatsoever. He saw that Brett was cheating on him, but instead of saying something to her, he just put down the people that she was with. Instead of facing his problem, he took his anger out on others. I don't respect people like that. I think that my reactions are what Hemingway intended from the novel. He wanted the reader to get angry with the type of person that Hemingway didn't like. He also wanted the reader to like the type of person that Hemingway does. Hemingway successfully shows the reader what type of person he wants them to be and hopes that they will try to change to that type of person.

Some call it characterization.

There are two ways that Hemingway develops characters in the novel: direct characterization and indirect characterization. Most direct characterization is done with Cohn. Hemingway needs to make sure that the reader understands Cohn and his character traits, so he tells the reader things like "He was a nice boy, a friendly boy, and very shy, and it made him bitter," (page 12). This type of characterization gives the reader very clear descriptions of the character that show their development and personalities in a very easy to understand way. The reader now understands why Cohn does what he does, because they are told that he is bitter and what made him that way.
The other type of characterization is one that must be understood by the reader. It can be seen in the ways that the characters interact. Mike makes fun of Cohn and insults him for hanging around Brett. This tells the reader that Mike is very insecure. Also, Brett chooses Jake to talk to with her problems, showing the reader that Jake is a good listener and kind. Hemingway is able to show the reader what the character is like instead of just telling them.
The effects of these to types are that simple, strong character traits can be established through the direct method. This ensures that the larger, more important traits are understood by the reader. The more complex character traits and character developments can be shown to the reader through interactions with others, creating a better picture than the first method. Both are used by Hemingway, but their intentions and results are slightly different.

And Brett loves...?

I have found the million-dollar question. With how free Brett is in her love life, it's pretty difficult for me as well as most other readers, I would assume, to tell who the person that Brett actually loves is. It isn't Cohn. She runs off with him, but talks poorly about him behind his back and supports those who don't like him. It isn't Mike. Though she is supposed to marry him, but she is so unfaithful that she obviously doesn't want to marry him. It isn't Pedro. She runs off with him after the fiesta in Spain, but she quickly realizes that she doesn't want to be with him. At this point every person that she ran off with or was going to marry is out, so who do we have left? We have Jake. From the beginning of the novel, Brett has flirted with a lot of guys, but she can only have deep, meaningful conversations with Jake. Whenever one of the two needed help, they would only feel comfortable going to the other. On the final page of the novel, 251, Brett acknowledges how they should be together by saying "Oh, Jake, we could have had such a damned good time together." I think that in the time of their lives after the novel, they will continue to live as they have, but understand their love a bit more.
Hemingway puts this relationship in the novel to show the reader what traits he believes make a couple truly in love. These traits are true no matter the time period that the reader lives in. This adds to the timelessness of the novel.

And he uses tone.

It seems to me that the tone that Hemingway sets in the novel reflects the mood that he was in when he wrote it. I don't know enough about Hemingway to decide his mood, but based on the novel, I'm going to say that he felt detached. Hemingway, throughout the novel, sets the tone of detached through characters and setting. The characters such as Jake, Mike, Bill, and Wilson-Harris all are war veterans who feel detached after the war. They speak and act as if, since the war, they are not normal people in society. I think Hemingway must have felt detached from some part of his life too.
In the final chapter, on page 241, Hemingway puts Jake in a detached area to further the tone. "Off on the right, almost closing the harbor, was a green hill with a castle. The raft rocked with the motion of the water. On the other side of the narrow gap that led into the open sea was another high headland. I thought I would like to swim across the bay but I was afraid of cramp." This final setting to the book really sets a tone of detached, because there is something that Jake wants to do, but because he is so far away, a fear keeps him from accomplishing that task.
Hemingway, by setting this tone, is able to elicit a certain emotional reaction of pity from the reader. The reader feels the same detachment that the characters do, causing them to empathize with them.

Why so cruel?

One thing about this novel that really disturbed me was the outright cruelty with which some of the characters treated each other. On pages 146-147, within a few lines of each other, the following things are said-"Shut up. You're drunk," "Go to hell, Mike," and "Damned noble of you." Stuff like this happens throughout the entire novel. It's pretty amazing how cruel the characters are to each other, and I was wondering why Hemingway would put that into his novel, but I think I've figured it out. Hemingway seemed to be a rather bitter fellow. The way that he has the characters treat each other makes that very clear. Also, I think that he saw a certain cruelty in society, and it angered him. He wanted the readers of his time to see how the characters acted and wonder if they treated others the same way. Hemingway was hoping to make a change in his society by doing this. I think he is also challenging readers of any time to make the same change in their lives. This creates a timelessness in the novel, because it can be read and related to by anyone from any time period.

Conflicts- external style

As I've previously said, the novel has some internal conflicts in a person's head, but it also has some external conflicts between two or more people. The major external conflicts involve the main issue that Hemingway focuses on in the novel- love. Most of them are between Cohn and another major character. Cohn punches Jake and argues with others, but I'm going to focus on the conflict between Cohn and Mike. Mike is a bit upset about the affairs that Brett has and he knows that Cohn has feelings for Brett. On page 146 he tells Cohn just how he and Brett feel about his being around all the time. "Why don't you know when you're not wanted? You came down to San Sebastian where you weren't wanted, and followed Brett around like a bloody steer. Do you think that's right?" In a very cruel way, he confronts Cohn about his being around Brett all of the time.
Hemingway uses this to show the reader the effects of speaking their mind. Hemingway obviously doesn't like the way that society has no filter when it comes to what they say, and he is using this external conflict to show the negative effects of that. He creates a timelessness in the novel by using issues that are not specific to his time, but rather can be applied to anyone's life.

Conflicts- internal style

In this novel, the major character that has the biggest internal conflict is the narrator, Jake. His debate has to do with Brett. He obviously loves her, and it seems that she has feelings for him too, but she also has feelings for other men. When they are alone, she seems to love him too, but when others are around, she doesn't act the same way. On page 42, Jake tells us how this issue makes him feel. "This was Brett that I felt like crying about. Then I thought of her walking up the street and stepping into the car, as I had last seen her, and of course in a little while I felt like hell again. It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing."
Throughout the novel, Jake is constantly watching Brett run off with one guy or another. He doesn't want to make Brett upset, but he is constantly debating in his head whether or not to make his feelings more obvious to her. This is a debate that many people have in everyday life, and Hemingway is playing to that. He adds a timelessness to the piece by creating an internal conflict that not only produces drama in the novel, but also draws the reader into the characters' relationships that are easy to relate to.

About those bulls...

I'm going to explain why I think Hemingway chose to have the characters' final place of meeting to be at a bullfighting fiesta. Many people see bullfighting as the perfect display of respect for animals, as well as an extremely graceful sport. Hemingway uses the bullfights to describe the relationship between the characters by showing how they are not what the bullfight is- graceful and controlled. On page 221, Jake says when talking about Pedro that "in his own bulls he was perfect." This is how Hemingway sees the bullfight. He sees them as perfect and uses this to contrast the characters.
While the characters in the novel have trouble getting what they want, the bullfighters gracefully and honorably kill the bull with relatively little trouble. While the characters are cruel to each other and verbally and physically attack each other when they are weak or vulnerable, the bullfighters put themselves in harm's way to give the bull as fair a chance at winning as they have. And finally, while the characters have no control over their situation or, more importantly, themselves, the bull fighters use skill, tact, and grace to control the bull during the fight. These are all ways that Hemingway shows the reader how bullfighting can be the model for relationships. He was obviously a big fan of bullfights. I'm not exactly to that point yet.

And now, why Pedro?

Pedro obviously isn't a main character. He only appears in a few chapters and doesn't really say much. But as Mike tells us on page 194, "Brett's gone off with that bull-fighter chap." The reason Hemingway has Brett run off with Pedro is to show the reader what type of person he admires in society. Pedro is honest and kind, yet he is very strong and courageous. Hemingway admires this type of person. The reader will most likely root for this character to get Brett over Cohn or Mike and, perhaps, even Jake. However, despite Pedro being the ideal man, Brett chooses to come back to Jake at the end of the novel. This shows that Hemingway realizes that the nice, honest man doesn't always win in the society he lives in. Hemingway is trying to get the reader to think about what sort of characteristics that they value. This creates a timelessness in the novel, because the reader, no matter what era they are from, can read this novel and relate to the issue being dealt with.

Why Bill?

Bill is a pretty baffling character for me. He seems pretty similar to Jake. He was in the war and likes to drink. I think he likes to drink, because he is mentally distressed from the war. His function appears to be a stable person for Jake (and even the reader) to relax with. He seems to be the character that is easiest for a reader to relate to. He likes to fish, he likes to drink, and he is nice to pretty much everyone. But the major thing that I picked up on is that Bill never seems to fit in. He doesn't appear to be a main character, and he isn't involved in all of the love issues that keep the novel going. On page 158, he says to Cohn "we're the foreigners." I think that he is talking about himself when he says this. He is the outsider of the novel, not in the sense of an outlaw, but in the sense of not fitting in.
Hemingway, because the novel is all about characters and their relations, needed to place a relatively normal character that was sort of left out. This allowed for that kind of person to relate to him. Hemingway created yet another character that allowed for the novel to possess a timelessness.

Robert Cohn as a foil.

"Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton," (page 11). Hemingway chooses for the reader's first image of Cohn to be one of a fighter. In the novel, he fights for many things. But one thing that is always true is that he is fighting against some other character. Cohn is not a typical foil character who goes against one character. Cohn, at some point in the novel, goes against just about every major character. He loves Brett, which causes him to go against Mike. They get in numerous verbal altercations over his obsession with Brett. He also physically attacks Jake on page 195.
Throughout the entire novel, Cohn spends his time foiling one character or another. Hemingway uses this type of foil not only to contrast other characters, but also to epitomize the extreme personalities in society that he does not approve of. Cohn serves as a character that can be molded into many types of people that are easy to understand because they are common in society. Hemingway uses this unique type of foil to bring a timelessness to the novel and its characters.

Why yes. That is an anecdote.

I'm going to turn the steering wheel here a bit and go back to the very beginning of the novel. I've been thinking about why Hemingway put in that anecdote about Cohn's life, and I think I know why. Cohn is described on page 12 as a member "of one of the richest Jewish families in New York." He had everything that he could have wanted, except for love. He married once, but that ended in divorce. We are then told about Frances and we soon realize that they aren't in love, but Cohn just feels like he needs a woman in his life. After that relationship fails too, the novel really begins. These two failed relationships that the short anecdote tells us about set the stage for Cohn's place in the novel. Hemingway uses this anecdote not because we need to know so much detail about Cohn's life, but because we need to understand the reasons why Cohn is so desperate for Brett's love throughout the novel. Hemingway successfully uses this anecdote to allow us to see the troubles of Cohn and why his personality is such a desperate one. We are able to see into the character of Cohn through this anecdote.

Disappointed.

The back of this novel told me that one of the aspects of the novel was about "the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain." Reading that, I expected some betting, or some intense rivalry, or at least some controversy, but, as usual with this book, I was disappointed. I really thought that the main climax was going to involve some street fight between Cohn, Jake, and their clan and some Spanish loan sharks. That didn't happen. Why this novel is so popular and so highly rated I have no idea. For me to enjoy a book, it must have action and it must have a fast-moving plot that keeps me interested; this novel has neither. I'm starting to understand the significance of the character developments and all of that. That is nice and all, but come on Mr. Hemingway. We all aren't psychologists and most readers need some sort of plot to keep them interested. I appreciate what you were trying to do, but I would also appreciate a bit of action somewhere in the novel. On page 185, Brett says "Darling, don't let's talk a lot of rot." I think that Hemingway was trying to talk to the reader there. He wants us to do what Brett is saying to do and not focus on the bad, but on the good of the novel. I'm trying my best to do so, but I'm failing at this point.