Ernest Hemingway: Cyrano and the Matador

Ernest Hemingway chooses to build some of his stories about certain themes. Why this is so is a matter with which we can have no concern, because we have no information about Hemingway himself. It is not possible to say even to what extent his choice is made consciously, and to what extent unconsciously. Neither in the study of the stories, nor in our use of the material from “Death in the Afternoon,” are we concerned with the author, but only with the events which he describes and the characters he creates. Furthermore, it is impossible to draw any valid inferences about the author, because we have selected for study only certain aspects of his writing thus confining our analysis to only a part of his general interest in life and its representation in literature. Therefore here again, as in the recent study of “Sanctuary,” we emphasize the fact that in analyzing these books we are investigating the expression in literature of certain universal human problems, and not the psychology of any particular writer.

These tales, superficially regarded, seem to be simple dramas of men who triumph over fear. The men are always saying, “Who's afraid?”—who's afraid of bullets, or of women, or of bulls, who's afraid of death, of disease, of guts and entrails; who's afraid of storms, who's afraid of anything! Sometimes the characters are blustering figures who shake their fists at the heavens, defying the high gods, inviting the lightning to strike them down.

Indeed, so preoccupied are they with the demonstration of their courage that they turn “snooty” towards everything else in the world. Thus in the vignette called “Banal Story” (in Men Without Women) they claim for the defiance of death more importance, more dignity, and more of greatness than anything else in the world. Again one sees the same system of values in Chapter 16 of “Death In the Afternoon,” in which Hemingway indulges in a fanciful personal controversy with Aldous Huxley; and against the gory background of the bull