Why is the Pamplona Fiesta so

The Sun Also Rises explores many unsettling yet contemporarily relevant themes that make for a very vital and important novel. The Pamplona Fiesta significantly acts as the catalyst, which alerts the reader to these themes and the extremity of the consequences and emotions behind them. Hemingway’s conscious use of the idyllic Paris, teamed with a graphic insight into the insouciant and privileged lifestyles of the characters, is very effective in establishing a canvas on which to place the ferocious contrast of the Pamplona experience. The underlying themes, (of which will be explored in the essay) such as the ‘lost generation’, religion, economy, gender politics, and aficionados are present in the Parisian environment, yet Hemingway does not truly manipulate them to their full apocalyptic potential until they embark on the fiesta. Hemingway also employs many effective structural techniques in order to achieve these unsettled themes, such as dichotomy between characters and themes and (arguably) large metaphors for the characters in relation to the fiesta. The essay will focus on this possibility in the context of the Pamplona Fiesta and the cycle and repetition of how ‘it kept up day and night for seven days.’

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Messent, Peter, Macmillan Modern Novelists – Ernest Hemingway, Macmillan Press, 1992, pp 6, 53, 53, 142. (His friends are rejecting the past but have no new substitute code for the present.

However, despite this arguably ‘heroic’ depiction of Cohn’s character, Jake and the war veterans can be excused for their ambiguity. Pamplona acted as an escape for Jake and company as a subconscious retaliation against the war: ‘The war had created culture without heroes…In the bullring, in contrast, heroes abounded. It probably was, yet Bill has captured the very essence of Jake’s existence here. It seems that their rather solipsistic views on post-war life are ruptured when placed in a foreign context. This is mainly owed to two principal factors, these being; the change or scenery and Spanish Fiesta lifestyle; and the strategically positioned Robert Cohn as the outsider amongst the lost generation aficionados and the anti-thesis of the Hemmingway hero. ’

This ‘dislocation’ of character continues to haunt Jake and his fellow companions to the Pamplona Fiesta and the difference in surroundings appears to wear thin on all members of Jake’s party. ’

The major factor in establishing Pamplona Fiesta as a crucial to the thematic and structural elements are the various methods of dichotomy used in conjunction or in opposition to one another. It must be noted that Jake is not an objective narrator and probably looks unfavourably upon Cohn due to his ability to consummate his love for Brett, whilst Jake cannot. What results at the end of Pamplona Fiesta is a gruesome battlefield, strewn with emotional casualties and physical strife. ’

Pamplona therefore is crucial in orchestrating and drawing attention to the critical themes of the novel - notably, aficionados, the ‘lost generation’, religion and the significance of Spanish Culture and the bullfight.

The Online Catholic Encyclopaedia, Mithraism, http://www. Therefore, they choose to believe in very little, which can be viewed as truly the most humane approach. At various points in the novel we experience Jake’s discomfort with being a Catholic (that’s what makes me so sore’ p76) and how he struggles with ‘technically’ (p 199) being a Catholic, yet struggling to find faith after witnessing such trauma and suffering during the war.

Approximate Word count = 1843
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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