Literature Essay Sample

Death In The Afternoon

literature-essay-sampleDeath in the Afternoon chronicles Spanish bullfighting in the 1920s and 1930s (“Death in the Afternoon”, n.d.). Hemingway makes the distinction of two different kinds of people, those who value the life of animals and thus find the sport barbaric, and those who value the life of humans and hate the sport when the matador is injured (“Death in the Afternoon”, n.d.). In the beginning of the book Hemingway initially believes that he will be disgusted based on what will become of the horses; however, as he watches he finds it to be a form of art (1997; Duffus, 1932). Hemingway believes that bullfighting humanizes Spain, a characteristic that he capitalized on to become a writer (Duffus, 1932). Hemingway stated that Spain was the “only place where you could see life and death, i. e., violent death now that the wars were over, was in the bull ring and I wanted very much to go to Spain where I could study it. I was trying to learn to write, commencing with the simplest things, and one of the simplest things of all and the most fundamental is violent death” (Duffus, 1932).


By witnessing the sport Hemingway was able to see that while death is horrifying, it also has a beauty and grace to it, comparing bullfighting to “a decadent art” such as sculptures or even painting (Duffus, 1932). Hemingway describes the beauty of the sport making the distinction between the Spanish who seem to possess a love of death and the Americans and French who prefer a love of life (Duffus, 1932). While he concedes that there is in fact much cruelty in the sport and that he understands why others would not try to defend it, Hemingway states that danger and death can be found everywhere and not just found in accidents in an industrial setting such as factory work (1997). Bullfighting, according to Hemingway, is death in the form

                                                  Works Cited

Duffus, R. L. (1932). Hemingway Now Writes of Bull-Fighting as an Art. Retrieved October 2, 2015 from https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/04/specials/hemingway-afternoon.html
Hemingway, E.(1932). Death in the Afternoon. Available from https://books.google.com/books?id=AdFQAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT284&dq=death+in+the+afternoon&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQuwUwAGoVChMIzPCc04CkyAIVR6UeCh1FOw8d#v=onepage&q=death%20in%20the%20afternoon&f=false
enotes. Death in the Afternoon. Retrieved October 2, 2015 from http://www.enotes.com/topics/death-afternoon

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