Jake, the novel’s narrator and protagonist, is an American World War I veteran who lives in Paris and works as a news correspondent. In the war, he suffered a wound that left him impotent, preventing him from being with the love of his life, Lady Brett Ashley. Throughout the novel, he remains a faithful friend to her, though he numbs his internal pain through drinking and traveling. By opening the novel with background information about Cohn, and saying nothing about himself, he establishes a pattern of avoiding his past.

Like other members of the Lost Generation, Jake eschews tradition and institutions for hedonism and living in the present. He is passionate about bullfighting and casts bullfighters in a heroic light. He greatly admires Romero, who fights with a style that is clean and honest. A regular user of alcohol who has several blackout episodes in the novel, he believes he can eventually stop abusing alcohol and instead enjoy drinking in an Epicurean way. He appreciates the simplicity of transactional relationships, while at the same time feeling the emptiness of his friendships.

At the conclusion of the novel, Jake is once again in Brett’s company, but still not with her romantically.