A further look into Jake Barnes, War Vet and Victim

Jake Barnes, the narrator in The Sun Also Rises, provides a look at a post war Europe, occupied by several American travelers. The man, whose injury in World War I has left him impotent, lives a life in the lap of luxury. Starting the novel in Paris, the War Vet frequents the party scene of 1920’s Europe and is highly characterized by his injury. He lives like any other rich American in Paris, until of course he finds himself with his girlfriend, the Lady Brett Ashley. By just living through all of this without so much as a complaint, the reader sees just how strong willed and determined this man is to overcome what he has become since the end of the war. Later in the book, we see that Jake is a catholic, though he admits he is a “rotten Catholic” after he prays at a large cathedral. Another quality that Jake shows is his constant changing of his opinion of things. At first he describes Robert Cohn as one of his good friends, a man that is exceedingly nice, but it is this niceness that Jake comes to hate as the book wears on. He also speaks of the Cathedral he prayed at when he says that “the first time I ever saw it I thought the façade was ugly, but I liked it now.” Both of these show that Barnes may be easily malleable, a man who will bend over time.