Why all the prices?

Hemingway’s decision to describe the price each of Jake’s meals and drinks is at first distinctly irritating.  At around the fifth bottle of champagne, the reader feels that they get the point: Jake and company are raging alcoholics and connoisseurs of expensive hors d’oeuvres.  However, this repetition and endless attention to seemingly insignificant detail is in fact a key way of describing Jake’s detachment from the other characters and their lack of real friendship towards him.

It is almost always Jake who gets and pays for food, which shows his role as the put-upon caretaker of the group.  (I believe that the only times that someone else in the group pays is when they draw lots.)  When people are feeling worried, he is the one to offer them a drink, and when people need food, he is usually the one who gets it.  For example, on the train to Spain, Jake is the one who finds out about the pilgrims taking up all the dining times and, when he tells Bill, Bill says, “‘Give him ten francs.’” (85)  Rather than offering Jake the money, Bill simply tells Jake to pay as usual.  In fact, when Jake does so and the waiter only offers them sandwiches, Bill indignantly snaps, “‘I suppose if I’d given you five francs you would have advised us to jump off the train’” (85, emphasis added).  Bill’s claim of Jake’s money as his in some way, somehow deserved by him, epitomizes the rather leechish attitude of the party towards Jake.  This attitude comes as a stark contrast to the generosity of the Spanish; again and again, Jake tries to pay his bill but is instead given his alcohol or food for free.  The people doing so have no ulterior motive for doing so; they are people “that [Jake] had never seen before” (157) and would never see again.  Hemingway makes it clear that Jake distinctly notices the amount of their generosity by having him remember the specific prices of what they bought for him.  Usually the amounts are small, but all together they are a significant amount of money saved by the kindness of others.    This memory, presented in contrast to Jake’s group’s lack of regard for his money, presents the reader with a clearer sense of Jake’s relation with the people he’s with and his evolving attitude towards them.

Did I say “evolving attitude”?  Yes, I did, and I am going to tackle a little bit of the question of whether or not Jake changes.  While he may not undergo a seismic change in values or morals, he does become disillusioned with his group, particularly Brett.  By the end of the novel, he has recognized his “friends” for who they are.  Although this is never acknowledged directly, Jake repeatedly refers to making the waiters his friends by tipping them lavishly, ironically commenting that “if they remembered me their friendship would be loyal” (233).  This similarity with the constant need to pay for Mike, Bill, Cohn, and Brett is particularly reinforced by the fact that his last interaction with Mike is centered around being told that “‘You can pay for the car, Jake’” (231).  Hemingway has made the parallel just clear enough that the reader can see the shift in Jake’s view of his friends, although perhaps not so clear that Jake is conscious of this change in attitude.  The reader is still reminded of this parallel between waiters and false friends when Jake pays for the food, alcohol, and car for Brett, making his later bitter dismissal of Brett as someone who he will “send…off with one man.  Introduce her to another to go off with him.  Now go and bring her back” (239) make sense.   The final line “‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’” (247) indicates that Jake has realized the same thing that the reader has; his relationship with Brett, and indeed all his compatriots, has little substance.  It is just something nice to imagine, just like his “friendship” with the waiters, and devoid of the genuine generosity found in the Spanish.