Their alienation caused them to travel because they felt unwanted and damaged in their own country. The veteran characters hated the non-veteran character Cohn because of their alienation also. .
The veteran characters hate Robert Cohn and his prewar ideals. One reason they hate him is because he "had a wonderful quality of bringing out the worst in anybody " (pg.98). He often brings out negative aspects of the veteran characters because the characters talk unkindly of him behind his back. Another reason they hate Cohn is that he represents idealism. He has a value system of romance and honor, and unlike Jake cannot accept that his affair with Brett has no emotional value. Due to Cohn not losing his idealism from the war, Jake thinks of Cohn as an immature boy. Mike also compares Cohn to a steer and asks, "Why do you follow Brett around like a poor bloody steer? Don't you know you are unwanted "( Cohn acts as Mike's foil in this case because he represents hope and idealism with his chasing of Brett, and these are the very aspects Mike has lost due to war. .
Finally, discussion of Cohn shows the obscure anti-Semitic tendencies of characters like Bill and Jake. The veteran characters find it easy to take out their insecurities on Cohn due to him being Jewish. In fact, in the novel a bet is made between Cohn and Bill , even though Bill knows he cannot win he bets so that Cohn does not feel "superior and Jewish" (Hemingway 102). This event shows how anti-Semitic the veterans are towards Cohn and how they stereotype him to great extent. Anthropologist Karen Brodkin defines the 1920s and 1930s as the "peak of anti-Semitism in America" (Brodkin). Jewish people were stereotyped as not being fun in this era. An example of this anti-Semitic stereotyping is shown when Mike was asking Cohn why he is not drunk and why he never gets drunk, and then goes on to tell him he is no fun for it(pg.126).The veteran's ability to be so anti-Semitic and morally unjust stems from their inclusion in the lost generation.
