The Hero: Pedro Romero
At the beginning of the 20th century Hemingway’s generation viewed the world as romantics (Wikipedia Romanticism, 2008). World War One changed all of this by the use of its brutal military tactics and technologies (Wikipedia WW1 Technology, 2008). What honor was there in men who were cut down by machine guns, and what courage could one display against mustard gas? Thus, World War One had lasting effects on the generation of this time, leaving many veterans with the feeling that life was harsh and hollow, their young bodies mentally and physically worn out before their time. After the war many people became expatriates aimlessly wondering Europe in search of personal meaning. They were coined the “Lost Generation”
(Wikipedia The Lost Generation, 2008).
Most of the characters in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises are of this lost generation. Robert Cohen and Pedro Romero are the exceptions. Cohen never experience war or hardships due to his wealthy Jewish upbringing, and was an annoying romantic. Evident by Cohen hoping that Brett would one day fall in love with him, when in fact she just used him for her own satisfaction. Contrary Romero was unaffected and untainted by the war due to his young age, and thus was able to easily possess Hemingway’s heroic characteristics. Hemmingway’s idea of a hero is a man who lives righteous, pursues the principles of honor, courage and fortitude. The narrator of The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes portrays Pedro Romero as the only character having these rare heroic characteristics and demonstrates them as follows.
Pedro Romero is a handsome, confident, strong, courageous young 19-year-old man who is a matador destined for greatness, he was “a real one” as Jake and Montoya agree (T.S.A.R. p.168, Ch.15). Pedro is a truly romantic aficionado. He loved bullfighting and he loved the bulls, referring to them as his best friends. Romero was able to turn the sport into a form of art,...