Edna and Robert - Cohn, not Lebrun

I found it interesting that as vocal as some people were in their condemnation of Edna as a mother, I don’t recall spending much time on the fact that one character in The Sun Also Rises was a father – the nearly universally disliked Robert Cohn. Robert Cohn’s fatherhood is far from the focus of The Sun Also Rises – ironic in a book obsessed with definitions of masculinity. In The Awakening, on the other hand, motherhood (Edna’s as well as Adèle Ratignolle’s) comes up frequently. Robert’s children never appear as characters in the book, while Edna’s children receive vivid if brief characterization. When describing Robert’s life, Jake says, “He…had three children” (Hemingway 12). A bit later, Jake briefly mentions, “He’s got children,” and Frances responds, “Oh, yes. He’s got children” (54). That’s all we really get. The children are dismissed, inconsequential.

Clearly Robert is not an attentive father. Hemingway doesn’t give any indication that Robert is even in contact with his children. If he is in any way supporting them, neither Hemingway nor any of the characters mention it. I have a feeling that if Robert were funneling some of his money toward child support (if such a thing existed in the 1920s), one of the characters would surely have commented on it because the book is peppered with mentions of spending money. And I would venture to say that Robert Cohn’s children cross his mind with even less frequency (and with much less fondness) than Raoul and Etienne cross Edna’s. So does Robert Cohn deserve just as much censure for being an absent father as about half of us gave Edna for being a distant mother?