Can Autistics Identify with Jake Barnes? The Case of Autism and the Hemingway Narrator in the Sun Also Rises

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

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Marinan, J. (2015). Can Autistics Identify with Jake Barnes? The Case of Autism and the Hemingway Narrator in the Sun Also Rises. International Journal of Psychological Studies, 7(4), 106. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijps.v7n4p106

Publication date: 11 Nov 2015 Added to AutiHub: 20 Sep 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) Full text OpenAlex source

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Authors

Publication authors
1
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 1 (100.0%)
  1. John Marinan *

Abstract

Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises is an early example of paraliptic narration, or the rhetorical technique of revealing by omission. Jake Barnes, the narrator, fits this bill because he exhibits startling incommunicability with respect to tale-telling and “reading” of other characters. I argue that this technique, gives Jake Barnes autistic qualities. At the same time, cognitive literary theorists have indicated that autistic readers might have difficulty understanding narrators of this type due to what they call “mindblindness”. They argue that without T.O.M. (Theory of Mind Mechanism), readers cannot make appropriate judgments about the narration. I argue the counter-point; invoking Kenneth Burke, I argue that autistic readers can understand paraliptic narrators because they can identify with them.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 20 Sep 2026 01:01.

Cited references
24
With a DOI
19
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
0
1 / 24 (4.2%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
3 / 24 (12.5%)
References with detected author names
21 / 24 (87.5%)
Without detected author names
3
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
0
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
26
From DOI or external metadata
26
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
3 / 26 (11.5%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 23 / 26 (88.5%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
1 / 26 (3.8%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 1 / 3 (33.3%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 1 / 26 (3.8%).
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