Hem's Roman à clef, "The Sun Also Rises" Quiz

Answer: Journalist

Jake Barnes is an American journalist living in Paris when we meet him. Jake's job underlines his powers of observation, an important role for his character as he relays the story of what his friends and frenemies do. When Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley lived in Paris, which is where Hemingway wrote "The Sun Also Rises", Hemingway was a journalist for "The Toronto Star" newspaper.

Answer: Made impotent from an unspecified war wound

Never specified, Jake's wound has rendered him impotent but otherwise healthy. While today's modern medicine would offer some help for Jake's problem, in the 1920s it made it much less likely for him to ever marry and have a family. His generation, traumatized by the war, is already considered rootless, and this makes Jake even more so.

At the same time, it allows him a certain detachment that in this case makes for an exceptionally perceptive narrator.

Answer: Yes

If "Hell, yes" were a choice, that would be the best answer. Jake met Brett before the novel opens while he recuperated from his injury in a hospital in England. Though they fell in love, they were unable to consummate their relationship, and, as becomes quite clear, this is not a medical issue Lady Ashley is going to work around.

While few details are given, Jake and Brett's relationship quickly disintegrated and Brett became engaged to another man. This unconsummated passion is a driving factor in Jake's life and the novel.

Answer: Robert Cohn

Robert Cohn is Jake's tennis friend, and the plot of the novel takes off when Robert, who is engaged to another woman, meets the stunning Brett, Lady Ashley, who is engaged to another man. Robert is smitten, Jake is annoyed, and Brett is interested enough to have a fling with Cohn. "When he fell in love with Brett his tennis game went all to pieces," reports Jake.

Answer: Utilize

The fishing scenes, with the characters standing deep in the clear waters of the Irati, are particularly charming. The men enjoy each other's banter about utilizing wine and irony and pity. From Book 2, Chapter 12:

"Bill gestured with the drumstick in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other.

" 'Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?' "

" ' After you, brother.' "

Answer: A severed bull's ear

Pedro Romero may be young, but he's one of the most promising bullfighters the bullfighting aficionados have seen in the ring in years. The judges award Pedro his bull's ear, which he presents to Brett, who takes it graciously at the time. Later, however, it's found stuffed and forgotten in the back of her hotel dresser drawer, symbolizing the fleeting nature of Brett's relationship with Pedro.

Answer: Robert is poor and Pedro is rich

Throughout the novel, characters makes references to those of the 1920s generation who are "one of us" (as voiced by Brett) versus those are who not. Bill, Mike, Brett, Count Mippipopolous, and Jake were all either in war or deeply affected by it, whereas Robert did not take part in WWI. Pedro may not have been a soldier, but, with his extreme grace under pressure in the bullring, he endears himself to Jake and others who admire courage.

Answer: Montoya feels Jake's introduction of Brett to Pedro has corrupted Pedro's purity

Montoya had made it very clear earlier to Jake that Montoya and the other Spanish aficionados had great hopes for Pedro Romero as the best bullfighter of his generation, and that if he were exposed to the wrong type of foreigners, he could become vain and spoiled. With Brett's loose morals (they would be loose according to the old-fashioned Montoya) and with Jake's friends' propensity for drunkenness and petty infighting, Montoya would be sorely disappointed that Jake had exposed the young Pedro to such debauchery.

It was clear Jake would not be welcome back to Hotel Montoya.

Answer: Takes the next express to Madrid to help her

Despite everything, Jake books a seat on the next express train to Madrid to rescue Brett, who has been left penniless and alone.

"That was it," Jake reports in Chapter 19. "Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back."

Answer: Pretty

"Isn't it pretty to think so?" has gone down in several lists of "Best Final Lines," including the Huffington Post's 2014 "21 Amazing Last Lines From Literature That Will Make You Want To Read The Whole Book."

Literary scholars have discovered other final lines that Hemingway drafted, including "It's nice as hell to think so" and "Isn't it nice to think so." But as the New Yorker magazine indicated in 2008, "Isn't it pretty to think so?" is perfectly balanced with the opposing forces of hope and skepticism that define the Lost Generation.