Bullfighting in the Sun Also Rises

Reflecting members of the Lost Generation, the characters in the novel are negatively affected by being a part of it because many are incapable forming genuine relationships. The fight between Cohn, Jake, and Mike especially illustrates such an idea because it shows just how meaningless the idea of friendship is to the characters. Cohn in particular gives little meaning to true relationships. He says that Jake is his best friend, yet he insults him prior to the physical altercation; “‘You’re really about the best friend I have, Jake’” (39). Despite Jake allegedly being his best friend, he still refers to him as a pimp, showing how little Jake means to Cohn. The negative effect of meaningless, dishonest relationships is also found in the overall relationship of the group: Cohn claims to like Jake, while Jake claims to hate Cohn. Mike abhors Cohn as well, yet they are all out together nonetheless. Their lack of honesty, which led to the fight, stresses the significance of the negative effects of being a part of the Lost Generation, which is Hemingway’s meaning of the entire work.

Today bull riding is the fastest growing and most dangerous sanctioned sport in the United States. There is also a lot of controversy behind the sport when concerning the care of the bovine used. To have a better understanding of the sport we will look at the history and talk about scoring and care of the bulls involved in the event. I have chosen “The History of Bull Riding” from the American Cowboy Magazine, “ABBI: Raising Bucking Bulls for Profit and Pleasure” from the American Cattleman Magazine, “Bucking Tradition, Bull-Riding Fans Cheer for the Beasts” from The Wall Street Journal, and “Eight Seconds to Glory-Bull Riding” from the Southern States website for this paper.

The clearest example is the impotency of the main character Jake Barnes. Jake explains to Georgette how he was hurt during the war in order to prevent her from becoming infatuated with him (Hemingway 22). The battle wound rendered Jake impotent, so he cannot be with his love, Brett Ashley. Throughout the novel, Jake witnesses Brett’s affairs with other men; his insecurity is enhanced. Robert Cohn, Jake’s Jewish friend, is a former boxer who did not experience World War I firsthand like the rest of Jake’s friends. Hemingway explains why Robert boxes: "He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton" (11). Robert practices boxing as a way to counteract his insecurity; he thinks he will gain respect and intimidate others. Instead, Robert is always found to be the center of jokes and criticism from his peer group; he nonchalantly brushes it off but is concerned about his identity.

This much is clear in Mike's drunken diatribes to Cohn: "I would have thought you'd loved being a steer, Robert...They lead such a quiet life. They never say anything and there always hanging about so...Is Robert going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?" (146) And even then, rather than knocking Mike out, which he certainly is capable of doing, Cohn takes the abuse and sulks, perhaps in the interest of preserving his interactions with Lady Brett. But Cohn is continuously bad-mouthed. The other characters make several anti-Semitic comments, scoffing his "Jewish superiority." (166) And all through this, Brett Ashley doesn't give him the time of day! How can this man be held so contemptuously by the others? Maybe because Cohn is the bull, not the steer. Hemingway hides this reference in one brief line. As Jake and Lady Brett are watching the bulls come out, Jake remarks: "Look how he knows how to use his horns...He's got a left and a right, just like a boxer." (144) The only other "boxer" in the novel is Cohn, and at one point in the book he reveals that he, too, knows how to use his horns: fed up with taking insults, he punches both Jake and Bill and knocks them out. Compare this to Jake: sexually dysfunctional, he is a steer, unable to consummate his affair with Brett Ashley. This at

What is the origin of bullfighting in Spain? According to Martin Seufert's book La Corrida de Toros The Tradition of Bullfighting in Spain, there are "several" hypotheses that attempt to explain how bullfighting began in Spain. One of those hypotheses is that the tradition of the "corrida" has roots in the Middle Ages; it was a form of Roman entertainment, Seufert explains on page 4 of his book (Seufert, 2011, p. 4). It is possible that bullfighting evolved from "the sacrifice of animals in religious festivities," Seufert explains, or perhaps it was created by the Moors.

The “corrida de toros,” known in English as the bullfight, but the direct translation is running of the bulls, is a Spanish style art form. A symbol of Spanish culture that has existed for thousands of years, and for much of the time the corrida de toros has been a debate of whether it is an activity that is morally right or wrong. The origination of the bullfight and its original significance has been lost and changed over time. Marvin (1994) states the corrida de toros is “a confrontation between nature and culture which is worked out in a controlled environment in a stylized and regulated way” (p. 135).

In addition to the conflict in the story, there are scenes of rising action. One example of rising action occurs when Wilson and Macomber return to the wild to hunt for a lion once again. Macomber is able to get a shot off but only able to wound the lion before it runs away. As Wilson and Macomber search for the wounded lion to finish it off, he inevitably runs away frightened for a second time. Hemingway writes Macomber, “was running; running wildly, in panic in the open, running toward the stream.” As a result of this instance, Macomber’s wife takes a thriving interest in Wilson. Hemingway writes, “Once he had reached over to take his wife’s hand . . . she had removed her hand from his . . . his wife had reached forward and put her hand on Wilson’s shoulder . . . and kissed him on the mouth.” Later, Macomber’s wife sleeps with Wilson, which will completely change Macomber’s persona for the rest of the story. Macomber is so overcome with anger, his character quickly changes from cowardly to courageous.

Bullfighting has been part of the Costa Rican culture and the Spanish tradition as many men are supporting this event. However, some questioned the danger these people are facing every time they try to kill the bull.

Hemingway particularized the two characters, Belmonte and Romero to be in constant battle with each other. The situation became clearer when “the crowd felt it, even the people from Biarritz even the American ambassador saw it.” Pedro Romero, the young matador “did always, smoothly, calmly, and beautifully,” at dancing dangerously near the bulls. Through the comparisons of the legendary bull fighter Belmonte whose “retirement has been spoiled” to the everlasting endearing Romero, Hemingway flaunted Romero as the bull fighter who could only prove himself to be superior. The symbolical use of the bulls broadened the two fighters to encounter what their future holds as one succeeds as the other expires. Hemingway then used in epiphany, “It was

But perhaps the greatest figure of masculinity found in Hemingway’s work is Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea. He keeps his composure and maintains dignity after the fish that he has been fighting is lost to the sharks.

Hemingway included details from his life into his story The Sun Also Rises including the fact that he did serve in WWI, he was an expatriate in Paris and he absolutely adored bullfighting and fishing. Ernest Hemingway revolutionized American writing with his short, declarative sentences, and terse. Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises is one of his masterpieces and is a classic example of his spare but

Secondly, Hemingway portrays violence through entertainment. Hemingway demonstrates violence through entertainment by bullfighting in arenas for the crowds enjoyment or the for the matador's satisfaction, the narrator reports,”The crowd shouted all the time and threw pieces of bread down into the ring, then cushions and leather wine bottles; keeping up whisling and yelling. Finally the bull was too tired from so much bad sticking and folded his knees and lay down and one of the cuadrilla leaned out over his neck and killed him with the puntillo. The crowd came over the barrera and around the torero and two men grabbed him and held him and some one cut off his pigtail and was waving it and ran away with it” (Chapter XI). This demonstrates violence through entertainment for the reason that the crowd is very enthusiastic with the bullfight by throwing bread and alcohol finally, someone kill it takes it tail to play with, he has no remorse for the bull. Occasionally with bullfighting the matador kills the bull purely for their own satisfaction, this is shown when a man takes on many bulls and happy for himself he exclaims,”We kills the savages’ bulls, and the drunkards’ bulls, and the riau-riau dancers’ bulls. Yes. We kill them. We kill them all right. Yes. Yes. Yes” (Chapter XIII). This demonstrates violence entertainment purely for the matador by recognizing how content he is when he kills a large amount of

““Isn’t it pretty to think so?”” (251). We are left with this one last line at the end of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises; a line spoken in reminiscence of a reality with Brett Ashley that has always been intertwined with a dream of Brett Ashley. With the fiesta coming to its completion, we are left with Jake and his company all splitting off on their own roads, yet there lies Jake backtracking and ending up once again with Brett, this time at Hotel Montana. Jake led her off with the youthful bullfighter Pedro Romero, yet there she was putting an end to that relationship and ending right back there with Jake. It was this same song and dance that plagued Jake all throughout the story and even well before; he leads her to some other male

When answering the question “What is the “function” of the cockfight, if not to reproduce Balinese social structure?” The first thing that must be done is to first to understand what Geertz’s believed cockfight means in the Balinese culture. The next is how this does this go with “structural-functionalism”. Then lastly contrasting Geertz’s argument using the information that Evans-Pritchard gives us with his work “Nuer”. These will help with deconstructing and then answering the question.

Moving on to the next character that struggles with his identity, Robert Cohn, much like Jake, wrestles with the question of is he a bull or is he a steer? While, unlike Jake, he is capable of sexual relations and has an affair with Brett, Cohn delivers the ironic statement that “it’s no life being a steer”, hinting at his insecurity in terms of his masculinity (Hemingway 145). On the surface, it would appear that Cohn does not have adequate reason to be insecure about who he is as a person. After all, he suffers no side effects from the war and is able to live his life as he pleases, dissimilar to Jake. But Cohn is set apart from the others in the story. Gross brilliantly puts into words just how subtle this differentiation can be by stating “how natural it seems . . . to call Jake Barnes Jake, Mike Campbell Mike, Bill Gorton Bill, Lady Brett Ashley Brett, and how unnatural . . . to call Robert Cohn Robert” (123). He then follows this up with the assertion that “Jake, and everyone else, calls Cohn Cohn to distance him” (Gross 123). Another aspect of this differentiation results from Cohn’s status as the only Jew in the novel. One further distinction is the idea that Cohn has never known real love. As Jake points out in the beginning, Cohn “was married by the first girl who was nice to him”, not a woman he truly loved (Hemingway 12). Upon meeting Frances, a literary woman who took a liking to Cohn and wanted to marry him, Cohn fancies that “he was sure he loved her”