Essay | Pedro Romero as a Hemingway Code Hero

In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway glorifies bull-fighting that takes place during the San Fermin fiesta. During this fiesta, Pedro Romero, one of the Spanish toreros, maintains the qualities of a code hero often found in Hemingway's novels. This hero, often referred to as a Hemingway Code Hero, is one who relies on his own code of conduct to guard against a hostile environment and a meaningless life, because the traditional means of having a meaningful existence through morals and religion have become futile(Lukacs). Though the hero knows that life must end, he follows his code to give life significance(Lukacs). These existential elements found in Hemingway Code Heroes produce a number of qualities commonly, such as grace under pressure, a belief in this life--all else is "nada," courage and skill, and stoicism. As shown by his supremacy as a bull-fighter and his interaction with Jake and Brett, Pedro Romero...
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