General Guidelines: While this is a short paper, you should still strive to include specific details and quotes from the novel to evidence your claims. The topics are fairly "open" and the questions I list are merely to get you thinking; be sure to come up with your own specific thesis. Choose only one of these topics. Use proper MLA format.

• Describe how Jake Barnes fulfills the role of a "Hemingway Hero."
• Discuss Brett Ashley as the only significant female character in this novel. What is her role in the novel? Is she strong? Is she a heroine? How is she compared and contrasted with the other female characters or with the male characters? (Be sure to consider both Hemingway and Barnes as the storytellers).
• Examine the characterization of Robert Cohn and his role in the novel. You might look at him as a Hemingway Anti-Hero. Be sure to examine passages where he is described, and look closely at the passages where he "takes action."
• Explore the ways bullfighting is used as metaphor in the novel and how it seems to reinforce some particular theme.
• Discuss the importance of point of view in the novel (the story is told in the first-person from a major character). Imagine part of the story told in some other point of view (omniscient, or from some other major or minor character). Your paper can either: make some argument about Barnes as a narrator, make some argument about how a different point of view would change the novel, or re-write some part of the narrative from some other point of view.
• A lot of the characters in The Sun Also Rises are writers, and there are several passages that mention writing or that mention particular books. Explore this aspect of the novel. What does Hemingway seem to be saying about writing or about literature?
• The Sun Also Rises was published during the American Modern Period. Describe the ways in which the novel exemplifies "modernist" ideas or motifs.
• Analyze the importance of setting in the novel. Look at some specific passages and explain how Hemingway is using the setting in order to reinforce certain themes.
• Examine the plot of the novel. In what ways does the plot reinforce the theme?
• What part does religion, spirituality, or God play in the novel?
• The European title for The Sun Also Rises was The Fiesta. What do you think is the significant difference in the two titles of the novel? Specifically explore the significance of the American title and the verse Hemingway includes from Ecclesiastes.
• Think of a topic and thesis of your own and run it past me for approval no later than Wednesday, September 12, either in class, in my office, or via email.