“Where’s Brett?” [Cohn] asked.
“I don’t know.”
“She was with you.”
“She must have gone to bed”.”
“She’s not.”
“I don’t know where she is” (194).
This conversation between Cohn and Jake formulates how much of an “outsider” Cohn is perceived to be by the “insider” crowd. His ignorance of Brett’s nomadic relationships causes him to react sensitively to the situation. Cohn seems to be played with irony by Mike when Mike tells him “If I did [know where she was] I wouldn’t tell you” (194). Cohn realizes that Brett is breaking away from, what he thinks, is their supposedly established love. Nonchalantly, Mike portrays his future wife having an affair with another man as a casual activity, adding humor to the fact that he calls Romero “the bull-fighter chap” (similar to the way Brett addresses herself when she conveys her superiority and independence). Mike later on expresses the true characteristic of this nomenclature when he says “I’m not one of these chaps likes being knocked about” (195).
As a result of his frustration, Cohn takes a couple of swings at Jake, Mike, and eventually Romero. The irony played out by the victims of the fight expresses how much of a superior group they believe they are. Edna happens to be in this scene, and since she is an “outsider” and doesn’t have much relevance to the group, Mike reacts sensitively to the way she describes the situation. Jake claims that Cohn “hit me and I sat down on the pavement.” Similarly, when Jake asks Mike what Cohn did to him, Edna replies by saying “he knocked Mike down” while Mike corrects her and says “he didn’t knock me out, I just lay there” (195). Despite the fact that waiters and people crowded around because of the commotion, Jake and Mike suppress their humiliation by pretending as if Cohn didn’t have the slightest effect on the situation.
Cohn’s behavior to support his affection towards Brett’s disloyalty gives more reason to further exclude him from events in the novel. Mike accepts Brett’s ill-mannered actions, but doesn’t react as harshly as Cohn did. Even though Cohn is seen as innocent when he clearly expresses his attraction to Brett, his behavior results in failure to conform to morals of the group. In the book, I believe the peak in which Cohn feels alienated from Mike, Jake, and Bill is when he discovers Brett’s undevoted personality.
Really the only connection that Cohn has to this group of friends is his "friendship" with Jake. He's Jake's tennis friend, and that's it. When he's thrown into Jake's drinking friends and best friends it is weird and he feels out of place. I think that this relates to many different friendships because we all have different circles of friends in our lives, and most of the time they may not intersect. I know that when I'm hanging out with one of my friends from school and we see someone that I know from somewhere else in my life it's slightly awkward because the other person is suddenly thrown into a circle of people who have already established a connection with each other based on their common values at school or at work etcetc. I think that's one of the reasons Cohn is considered an outsider and ridiculed throughout the book. Cohn doesn't understand the other characters, and there's little reason for him to be expected to understand people who he hasn't interacted with before.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kathryn in that Cohn seems to be in that awkward position of trying to fit into a group whose group dynamics are already so well established. It's exactly these dynamics that Cohn seems to dislike, such as Mike and Brett's relationship and Jake and Bill's "bromance".
ReplyDeleteWhile he comes off as being ignorant, maybe it's just the fact that he's trying avoid and ignore these dynamics and convincing himself that they don't exist so that he can fit in that makes him look ignorant.