Post #6 - The Sun Also Rises

Since my last post I have finished my second book, The Sun Also Rises, reading a total of 116 pages. I have only just started reading my third book, A Farewell to Arms. In The Sun Also Rises, the rest of the story mainly occurs near or in Pamplona, Spain. The group of friends, that comprise the main characters, go fishing in the mountains/hills and partying during the week-long fiesta in Pamplona (known as the Running of the Bulls). They also attend multiple bullfights and interact with some of the bullfighters.

I have noticed both in The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and The Sea, that Hemingway has a particular type of relationship between man and beast. Despite the fact that it is a man killing a fish or bull, the fight itself is noble as is the ending when done properly. Only certain characters understand this quasi-spiritual relationship between the man and the animals, most other characters do not recognize the nobility and purity of it. In The Old Man and The Sea, the old man considers the fish superior and only his cunning allowed him victory. In many ways it is the same in The Sun Also Rises, the bullfighter's tricks defeat the bull but it is an honorable death in the eyes of the narrator Jacob Barnes. The same is true for the old man who has much respect for his catch, until the sharks eat it that is. I could use these observations if I write about Hemingway's view of the natural world. Possibly his war experiences desensitized him to the connection between humans and the higher power and caused him to glorify the same connection with the creatures of the Earth.