The Sun Also Rises Summary: Hemingway’s Portrait of a Broken Generation
The Sun Also Rises Summary: A Lost Generation’s Torment
A taxi rattles through Madrid.
A man and a woman sit close but impossibly far apart.
With one line of dialogue, the entire weight of a novel lands.
That moment comes late in The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel about American and British expatriates drifting through postwar Europe.
The summary examines what the book presents: a group of friends caught between the trauma of World War I and a future they cannot quite believe in.
Hemingway places readers in mid-1920s Paris cafés, on Spanish fishing streams, and inside the chaotic Fiesta of San Fermin.
The characters drink, travel, and talk endlessly about what matters, without ever quite saying what they mean.
The novel’s power comes from what remains unspoken.
Hemingway’s spare prose suggests emotional depths that the characters themselves refuse to articulate.
For more of Hemingway’s work, browse the Ernest Hemingway book summaries on URSummary.
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At a Glance
- Jake Barnes, an American journalist, loves Lady Brett Ashley but cannot be with her physically due to a war wound
- The novel moves from Paris to Spain, tracking a group of expatriates through drinking, fishing, and bullfighting
- Brett’s shifting romantic entanglements create mounting tensions that explode during the Pamplona fiesta
- The story offers an unsentimental look at the Lost Generation’s search for meaning after World War I
- The famous final line captures the novel’s unflinching view of love and impossibility
The Sun Also Rises Summary: The Full Story
⚠ SPOILER WARNING: This summary includes the complete story, including the ending.
Explore the Full Story Through Chapter Summaries
Jake Barnes lives in Paris and works as a newspaper journalist.
He spends his time in cafés and bars with other expatriates, including Robert Cohn, a Princeton-educated writer and former boxer.
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Cohn is restless and unsatisfied.
He reads a book about South America and immediately wants to travel there. He badgers Jake to come with him.
Jake refuses.
Lady Brett Ashley arrives. She is beautiful, titled, and twice divorced. She wears her hair brushed back like a boy’s. Men orbit around her.
Jake loves Brett. Brett loves Jake. But Jake sustained an injury during the war while flying on the Italian front. The wound left him impotent. They cannot be together physically.
Brett drifts into a brief affair with Robert Cohn during a trip to San Sebastian. Cohn becomes obsessed. Brett loses interest. She becomes engaged to Mike Campbell, a bankrupt Scotsman who drinks heavily.
Jake’s friend Bill Gorton arrives from New York. They plan a fishing trip to Spain. The two men take a train to Bayonne, then a bus to the village of Burguete.
The fishing sequence shifts the novel’s tone. Jake and Bill walk through chestnut forests, wade into cold streams, and pull trout from the water. They drink wine from leather bottles. Their conversation has an easy rhythm. For five days, the complications of Paris feel distant.
The peace does not last. They travel to Pamplona for the Fiesta of San Fermin. Brett, Mike, and Cohn meet them there.
The fiesta lasts seven days. Rocket explosions announce its start each morning. Bulls run through the streets. The town fills with music, dancing, and relentless drinking.
The group’s tensions surface quickly. Mike attacks Cohn verbally, calling him a steer who follows Brett everywhere. He asks why Cohn does not understand he is unwanted.
Into this charged atmosphere steps Pedro Romero, a nineteen-year-old bullfighter. Romero possesses what the novel calls afición, a quality of pure passion and integrity. He is extraordinarily talented. He is also extraordinarily handsome.
Brett notices him immediately.
She asks Jake to introduce them. Jake does, through Montoya, the hotel owner who reveres bullfighting and believes Romero represents something uncorrupted. Montoya calls Jake a true aficionado. Jake feels he betrays that trust.
The affair begins. Brett and Romero disappear together. Cohn learns of it.
Cohn confronts Jake and calls him a pimp. He knocks Jake down. He finds Mike and knocks him down too. Then Cohn goes to Romero’s room. He beats the young bullfighter badly, hitting him repeatedly in the face.
Romero refuses to stay down. He rises again and again. Cohn eventually leaves, weeping. Later he apologizes to Jake and departs Pamplona before the fiesta ends.
The next day, Romero fights despite his swollen face. He performs beautifully, killing the bull with precision and grace. He cuts off the bull’s ear and gives it to Brett in the stands.
Brett leaves Pamplona with Romero. The fiesta ends. The streets empty. Jake feels hollow and exhausted.
He travels to San Sebastian alone, swimming in the bay and trying to recover. A telegram arrives. Brett needs him. She is in Madrid, broke, and Romero has gone.
Jake takes the night train. At a cheap Madrid hotel, Brett tells him what happened. She sent Romero away. She decided she would ruin him if she stayed. She felt she was corrupting something young and pure.
She says she is going back to Mike. She tells Jake she feels good about her decision.
They go for a drive. Brett leans against Jake. She says they could have had such a good time together.
Jake answers: “Yes. Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
The taxi continues through Madrid traffic. The novel ends.
Characters In This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Jake Barnes | American journalist and WWI veteran whose war injury left him impotent |
| Lady Brett Ashley | Titled Englishwoman who is the romantic center of the expatriate group |
| Robert Cohn | Jewish-American writer and former Princeton boxer who becomes an outsider in the group |
| Bill Gorton | American writer and Jake’s closest friend, companion on the Burguete fishing trip |
| Mike Campbell | Brett’s fiancé, a bankrupt and hard-drinking Scotsman |
| Pedro Romero | Nineteen-year-old bullfighter whose skill and integrity set him apart |
| Montoya | Hotel owner in Pamplona who values bullfighting purity and afición |
| Count Mippipopolous | Wealthy Greek veteran who appreciates fine living and holds clear values |
| Frances Clyne | Robert Cohn’s girlfriend at the start of the novel |
| Wilson-Harris | Englishman befriended by Jake and Bill during the fishing trip |
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Beneath the Surface: The Novel’s Big Ideas
| Theme | How the Book Presents It |
|---|---|
| The Lost Generation | The characters drift between countries and relationships, filling time with drinking and surface-level socializing without expressing deeper purpose |
| Masculinity and Virility | Jake’s impotence stands against Romero’s physical mastery in the bullring, with Cohn’s boxing and Mike’s verbal aggression falling somewhere between |
| Afición | Montoya uses this term to describe the authentic passion shared by true bullfighting devotees, a quality the expatriates largely lack |
| Nature as Healing | The Burguete fishing chapters show Jake and Bill finding temporary peace through physical immersion in the natural world |
| Love and Impossibility | Jake and Brett’s mutual love remains unconsummated, and their final scene together confirms the permanent barrier between them |
FAQs
What does the ending of The Sun Also Rises mean?
The ending of The Sun Also Rises shows Jake and Brett acknowledging that their relationship was always impossible. Jake’s final line, “Isn’t it pretty to think so,” refuses the comfort of sentimental illusion and accepts the reality of their situation.
What is the Lost Generation in The Sun Also Rises?
The Lost Generation refers to the young people who came of age during World War I and found themselves disillusioned with traditional values afterward. In Hemingway’s novel, the expatriate characters embody this aimlessness through constant travel, heavy drinking, and a visible inability to commit to lasting relationships or meaningful work.
Why does Jake Barnes love Brett but cannot be with her?
Jake Barnes sustained a war injury that left him physically impotent while his desire for Brett remains intact. Brett loves Jake but states plainly that she cannot live without physical intimacy, which creates the central impossibility that drives the novel.
What does bullfighting symbolize in The Sun Also Rises?
Bullfighting represents a form of authentic action and courage that contrasts with the aimless lives of the expatriates. Pedro Romero’s performance in the ring demonstrates the discipline and genuine passion that the novel calls afición.
Is The Sun Also Rises an autobiographical novel?
The Sun Also Rises draws heavily from Hemingway’s own experiences in 1920s Paris and his 1925 trip to the Pamplona fiesta with friends. The characters correspond to real people in Hemingway’s circle, making the novel what critics call a roman à clef.
Who is Robert Cohn based on?
Robert Cohn is widely understood to be based on Harold Loeb, a writer who attended Princeton and boxed in college. Loeb traveled with Hemingway’s group to Pamplona in 1925, and the tensions that emerged during that trip appear in fictionalized form in the novel.
Why does Brett leave Romero at the end?
Brett tells Jake that she left Pedro Romero because she feared she would corrupt him and damage his career. She describes herself as potentially ruining the young bullfighter and chooses to walk away rather than continue the relationship.
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