Reading Response #4: Rhetorical Situation

Irene Holmes
Ms. Darrow
ENG 140
July 02, 2009
Reading Response #4: Rhetorical Situation
Pamplona In July

The short essay, Pamplona In July written by Ernest Hemingway first published in 1923 in The Toronto Star Weekly under “World’s Series Of Bull Fighting a Mad, Whirling Carnival“ (Pg. 98). Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois and died 1961. He started his writing career at age 17 working at a newspaper office in Kansas City continued as he lived his life. Most of his writing are fictional but related to personal experiences, “Hemingway -himself a great sportsman-liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith.
His straightforward prose, his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement are particularly effective in his short stories…” like the short essay, Pamplona In July. (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html). Pamplona In July is about Spanish bull fighting event that takes place every year in Pamplona, Spain and had also become a part of Hemingway’s life experience. Hemingway traveled to Spain frequently to witness the bull fights allowing him to bring his reality into a fictional form of writing in the essay Pamplona In July, (http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Hemingway_Ernest.html).
The fictional piece of literature was written to entertain and educate the audience about bullfighting. Through entertaining scenarios, Hemingway is able to educate the audience about bull fighting, “Consequently Pamplona is the toughest bull fight town in the world…About three hundred men, with capes, odd pieces of cloth, old shirts, anything that will imitate a bull fighter’s cape are singing and dancing in the arena. There is a shout, and the bull pen opens…the bull charges and bags another man. The crowd roars with delight.” (Pg. 102). Hemingway brings the audience into the bull fighting arena by detailed and graphic imagery writing of bull fights, “Once he flopped the cape at the bull and floated it around in an easy graceful swing…Instead of stopping at the finish the bull charged on in…the bull was on top of him, driving his horns again and again into him.” (Pg. 105). Bull fighting originated 1726 in Spain, and as described by Hemingway the bull fights back then are similar in fighting style. Brave men entered the arena with capes and swords in hand ready to take on the bull, “As bullfighting developed, the men on foot, who by their cape work aided the horsemen in positioning the bulls, began to draw more attention from the crowd…When a bull first comes into the arena out of the toril, or bull pen gate, the matador greets it with a series of manoeuvres, or passes, with a large cape…matador tries to stimulate the excitement of the crowd by working closer and closer to the horns, the fighter takes the sword and lines up the bull for the kill…The kill, properly done by aiming straight over the bull's horns and plunging the sword between its withers into the aorta region, requires discipline, training, and raw courage; for this reason it is known as the “moment of truth”.” (http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/bullfighting/history.html). The comparison of the fictional writing of a bull fight and reading the facts about a bull is very close in detail, Hemingway did a good job of his close observation of the bull fights that he attended in his life which aided him write an excellent fictional essay about bull fights. The essay Pamplona in July is written for an audience who enjoy sporting events because Hemingway, “himself a great sportsman-liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith.” (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html).
Hemingway warns the male audience that a bull fighter’s bravery is no where near a typical man’s bravery. If their wives should ever witness a bull fighter’s bravery, proving their own bravery to their wives may never be as greater than a bull fighter, “Maera is Herself‘s favorite bull fighter. And if you want to keep any conception of yourself as brave, hard, perfectly balanced, thoroughly competent man in your wife‘s mind never take her to a real bull fight…You can not compete with bull fighters on their own ground. If anywhere…husbands are able to keep drag with their wives at all is that, first there are only a limited number of bull fighter, second there are only a limited number of wives who ever seen bull fights.” (Pg. 104). Hemingway may have had difficulties with his wife when writing this essay, it was unusual for a writer to advise an audience.
The essay itself was full of excitement from beginning to end, like any sporting event one will enter the arena, court or field or to sit among the audience with great anticipation to win and conquer an opponent. Here Hemingway is the narrator, sitting in the stands, he has great anticipation of the bull fight, “We Picked out the three matadors of the afternoon with our glasses. Only one of them was new. Olmos, a chubby faced, jolly looking man, something like Tres Speaker. The others we had seen often before. Maera, dark, spare and deadly looking, one of the very greatest toreros of all time. The third, young Algabeno, the son of a famous bull fighter, a slim young Andalusian with a charming Indian looking face.” (Pg. 103). As the fight nears the end, Hemingway’s fine selection of bull fighter is down to one still standing, Olmos. “There is no substitute matadors allowed. Maera was finished. His wrist could not lift a sword for weeks. Olmos had been gored badly through his body. It was Algobeno’s bull. This one and the next five. He handled them all. Did it all. Cape play easy, graceful, condident…five bulls he kills, one after the other…they were all wonderful bulls.” (Pg.105-106).
Hemingway uses names of places such as the city of Pamplona which is located in Spain is also the capital of the Province of Navarra where the Fiesta of San Fermin takes place every year from July 7 through July 14. The bull runs begin every morning through out the whole festival. (http://goeurope.about.com/cs/spain/a/pamplona_fermin.htm). The “festival of San Fermin at Pamplona” (Pg. 101) is also an actual event of Pamplona.
Bringing actual facts of places and events into a fictional story brings the story together and without causing confusion in details. Imagine a fictional story about bull fights in Alaska, one would question “Bulls in Alaska?”, maybe the writer met seal fights in Alaska. Writers like Hemingway will use personal experiences into writing fiction or nonfiction stories. The audience he choose for his essay is basically for any reader but if there are any male readers he warns them of every taking their wives to a bull fight. The essay itself is very entertaining and educational, and the language he uses are of Spanish version which ties in with the story and make the audience feel like they are among the stands in Spain watching the bull fight with Hemingway in Pamplona in July.
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