Does Jake Barnes change and grow as a character?

The subject of The Sun Also Rises is, ultimately, the consciousness of its protagonist and narrator, Jake Barnes. The first few chapters consciously vary Jake's distance from his story--'once' in the opening line and then the shift forward when Jake tells us he was Cohn's tennis friend--but, following this, the narrative switches to a simple past tense mode, almost a moment to moment stream-of-consciousness. Or, more accurately, the novel is an account of a stream-of-perception, given that it consists purely of Jake's immediate observations of his surroundings and external events. Even his thoughts and feelings deserve to be called observation rather than analyses given their superficiality. I do not mean anything disparaging by 'superficiality,' which in fact becomes a strength: merely that even thoughts only form a surface. Even in an unusually introspective passage, we find no more than Jake's offhand speculations: 'no idea of retribution or punishment...' (p.g. 137) D.H. Lawrence, who never fails to tie an act of speech to a deep psychic instinct, provides an inverse style of narration.

As a result of this style, it seems hard to describe Jake as a changing character: after all, if the style only touches the surface, it necessarily excludes the inner soul that would be the subject of change. And yet, Hemmingway does manage to show Jake expanding and growing, while acknowledging the limits of growth. The Jake Barnes of Book 1 is severely critical of Cohn, an attitude which is certainly defensive. Cohn's devestating weakness is his complete lack of self-reliance: he learned to box because he was insecure about his Jewishness, and, more importantly, desires some sort of salvation by sex, receiving a 'healthful shock' by being released from one sexual relationship only to fall into the grasp of the equally inadequate Frances, and finally reducing himself to a child through his foolish pursuit of Brett. Jake is certainly more mature, but is still in danger of becoming Cohn. Probably out of a desire to cure himself of Brett (who has not been named yet), he brings along a prostitute to the party. Later, in the taxi with Brett, he gushes (in a few words): 'Oh Brett!' 'Don't you love me?'

There is little doubt that a relationship between Jake and Brett should be ideal. Throughout the novel, their characters are carefully mirrored: Brett's attitude towards bull-fighting is promising, while many of Jake's phrases in the last section (I can't remember any!) subtly repeat things Brett has said. As a result of Jake's war wound, however, the ideal is impossible. Brett attempts to rescue it by splitting her sexual needs from her emotional ones with disastrous consequences, for her and her lovers: the youth Romero is physically brutalized, while Cohn and Mike are cartoons. We would also expect it to cause Jake great pain--his early behavior, noted above, are instances of this showing through--but, instead, he is convincingly resilient. He quietly sets Brett up with Rome, proving Cohn, jealous not only of the bull-fighter but also of Jake for his detachment, into a superb outburst. Immediately before Brett's telegram arrives, he seems to be at peace on the beach even as we realize that there must be repressed sorrow. The final scene with its admission of what is denied to them, is a certain improvement on the early taxi scene. What is most remarkable about Hemmingway's novel is that Jake's development takes place through an evolution in the style of his narration, until it becomes almost purely descriptive, consigning what is felt ('isn't it pretty to think so') to speech.