Read the Epigraph and Chapters 1-4
Content Summary for Teachers
Chapters 1-2
Our narrator, Jake Barnes, describes Robert Cohn, the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton University. Although he disliked the sport, Cohn took up boxing in order to compensate for his feelings of inferiority as a Jew at Princeton. While boxing, Cohn's nose was flattened, and now, Jake says nobody remembers him. Cohn graduated from Princeton with low self-esteem, entered into a failed marriage, and lost most of his inheritance.
He moved to California and edited an arts magazine, and eventually met a woman named Frances, who perceived Cohn as a rising socialite and wanted to take advantage of his status....