Reading The Sun Also Rises, I can't help but draw parallels between Jake Barnes and Jay Gatsby. Both are Jews, both have lost their way, and both have attached themselves to a woman in their moment of lost masculinity. Both women, Frances Clyne and Daisy Buchanan, have a huge amount of agency in the novel. In fact, both novels are driven by either female character's failure or success at various moments. The climaxes of the story do for sure, with Daisy choosing a comfortable life as Tom Buchanan's wife and Clyne choosing to have an affair with a matador.

For one, why do both authors chose Jewish characters to illustrate this feeling of what I'll call a "lost masculinity." Second, is that why women are allowed such an important role in the novel? The main characters have lost their masculinity and thus their agency, so the women have room to expand and grab their own? Or is the agency of Clyne in The Sun Also Rises a symptom of the disease to speak? Is Clyne having such freedom a good thing, or even a neutral thing, or is it presented as a problem that wouldn't exist if Barnes was as masculine as he should be? This is the same problem I had with The Great Gatsby and wrote a conference paper over -- sure, the women have agency, but why? How do they exercise it? Daisy's agency seems to exist to simply reinforce the class structure/social modes of the time and act as a trophy for the fight between Tom and Gatsby. Clyne, likewise, has the ability to chose her own path, but it feels like this agency is less about choosing her own path and more about illustrating how screwed up Barnes' own masculine identity is.

EDIT: So, I completely confused Jake Barnes and Cohn. I blame Hemingway and his "Iceberg Theory." My apologies Dr. Drouin.

I think the same thrust of my argument still stands. There is a sincere lack of masculinity from Jake, and that leads him to be unable to control Lady Ashley despite her actively wanting to give herself to him. The Jewish character in Cohn is still virile and everything that Jake physically cannot be anymore, but the self-hatred Jake feels is projected against Cohn. As Dr. Drouin said in class, Cohn is the literal scapegoat of the group. So while Cohn isn't lacking masculinity on his own, he is forced to take on that lack of masculinity from Jake, if only to stand as a monster that Jake can hate so that he doesn't hate himself. 

I still stand by these women with agency, your Daisy's and your Lady Ashley's, that only have agency because the men in the novels are lacking some kind of masculinity. It's a start, but it's more empty than anything.