Reading Guide II: The Sun Also Rises
As you read answer the questions below. Some questions are “right there” questions and others require more analysis. The grading scale for this reading guide is:
4 – all of the numbered questions are completed and most of the lettered questions
3 – all of the numbered questions are completed
1 – the numbered questions are incomplete
Chapter 8
1. Describe the incident of racial prejudice in Vienna.
a. Why does Bill remember this so vividly?
b. Why does Brett compare Vienna to Paris? How does she feel about this?
2. Contrast Mike and Bill.
a. What do their choice of conversation topics demonstrate about their characters?
Chapter 9-10
3. How does Brett’s revelation about San Sebastian affect Jake?
a. Why had she gone? What does this tell you about Brett?
b. How does this drive a deeper wedge between Robert and Jake?
4. Describe the scenes on the train.
a. How does the “pilgrimage to Rome” of the Catholics on the train parallel to the pilgrimage of Jake, Bill, and Robert? What are they looking for?
b. What is the relationship of Jake to the Catholic Church?
5. Describe why Robert and Jake’s friendship is dissolving. There are many reasons – not just one!
Chapter 11-12
6. Contrast France and Spain.
a. How does each represent a difference in values?
b. What do the churches that are described have to do with those values?
c. How does Jake’s statement, “I only wish I felt religious and maybe I would the next time” fit this?
7. Comment on Bill’s feelings about expatriates who lose “touch with the soil…drink yourself to death…become obsessed by sex…spend all your time talking, not working.”
a. How does this describe Jake and his friends?
b. How does this describe Jake’s attitude? Is this good or bad?
8. Show how Bill and Jake’s fishing trip is similar to a religious experience.
a. How does Bill’s observation that “Our stay on earth is not long. Let us