The Sun Also Rises(Chapters 14 & 15)

Chapters 14 & 15 Summaries

Chapter 14 starts with Jake, Brett, Mike, Robert, and Bill all returning to their rooms that night when they watched the bullfight and got drunk afterward. When Jake returns to his room very drunk, he hears Brett and Mike laughing as they go to bed. When Jake lied down in bed, Jake reflects that women make such great friends because a man has to be in love with a woman to be friends with her. He felt that he is a great friend with Brett, starting with the first time they met in the club to now in Spain together. He also feels that Mike was never first a friend with Brett. Jack feels as if he has been getting something for nothing in his friendship with Brett, but that eventually he will have to suffer for the friendship. He decides that people have to pay for everything that is good in life. He concludes that he must cherish everything because time passes so quickly. However, he also thinks that in five years this philosophy will seem as silly and useless as all the other philosophies he has constructed over his many periods of his life. He struggles too with the question of morality. Though he wishes Mike would not insult Robert because it just causes fights, he admits to himself that he enjoys watching Mike do it. The next few days of being in Spain were very quiet because people had to prepare for the major upcoming fiesta. Chapter 15 begins the fiesta that Jake and all of his friends have been waiting for. The fiesta starts with the fireworks exploding at noon . Children, men, and women all fill the streets of Spain celebrating the fiesta. Jake wakes that morning hearing musicians playing and cannot believe that the seven day fiesta has begun. As Jake notes that it seems to everyone as though nothing could have any consequences during this amazing fiesta, but by the end of the fiesta, even money loses its value for those spending it. The crowd pulls Jake and his friends into a dancing circle around Brett. Afterward, they rush into a crowded wine shop. Everyone inside the store is dancing and singing. Brett, wearing a wreath of garlic around her neck, learns to drink from a wineskin like Bill and Jake had learned to. Everyone shared foods and wine during the fiesta because no one cared. Jake then went out to buy two cases of wine. When he returns, he finds that Robert is missing. At first he did not bother looking for him because he did not think that he was really gone because there were so many people he could have just been lost. Though when Jake asks his friends if they had seen Robert, none of them respond because none of them cares where Robert is. Though Jake nervous and scared goes out looking for him. After a long and hard look, he finds Robert passed out in the back of the shop. Jake wakes him up and tells him that they are going to go out to dinner. So Brett, Jake, Robert, Bill, and Mike all eat a large dinner that night and everyone but Jake stays up all night partying. Then the next morning, and exploding rocket, announces the release of the bulls. Jake immediately wakes up, excited to see the bullfight. He runs over to the balcony and Jake watches the crowd run with the bulls toward the bullring. During the first bullfight, Mike, Robert, and Brett sit high up in the theatre, but Bill and Jake wanting to see the action, go up close to the front. Robert then claims that he worries only about being bored. Bill again complains to Jake about Robert's Jewish personality and feeling of being superior. Montoya (The hotel manager that knows Jake) introduces Jake to a promising new bullfighter, Pedro Romero. Romero is nineteen years old and the most handsome guy Jake has ever seen. When the bullfight begins, Romero dazzles everyone who watches him. Brett, one that is most especially dazzled by Romero's skill. Brett so intrigued moved down to be were Jake was at. Romero tired the bull down quickly and then went in for the kill. Jake said to Mike and Brett that he was the best bullfighter he had every seen before. After the fight Mike jokes that Brett is falling in love with Romero and he asks Jake to tell her that bullfighters beat their mothers, so she will not be attracted to him. The following day Romero does not fight, and their was no bullfight scheduled the day after that. Jake and Brett both disappointed to see Romero preform go and get a drink together.

Chapters 14 & 15 Personal Comments

I think that chapter 14 was a good chapter and very easy to read. I think that it showed how much Jake knows about bullfighting and how he goes every year to see them occur. I think chapter 15 is the most important chapter of the book so far. I think that the fiesta is what Jake and all of his friends have been waiting for and now that it is here they all go off and do there own thing. I thought that these chapters were both very easy to read and fast to read. I thought that chapter 14 was good, but I loved chapter 15. I thought that it was excellent and that I learned things that I did not know about bullfighting. I think that Mike, Bill, Robert all seemed sexist because since Brett was a girl she has to close her eyes when the fighter is attacked. Though overall I loved the chapters and I think that the book is going to continue to get better and better.