摘 要

《打不败的人》是硬汉作家海明威的著名短篇小说之一，被看作是其文学硬汉形象的开始。与他的其余作品一样，在海明威简短凝练的文风中，文中的主人公曼努埃尔和他的斗牛充满象征意义。主人公和他的辫子以及社会对其的蔑视、公牛、甚至斗牛这一事件本身都并非表面上那样简单，都蕴含着深刻的象征意义。所以笔者希望从小说的主人公、环境、斗牛事件、情节等各方面对其象征意义进行分析，总结和归纳《打不败的人》中的象征手法以及海明威的人生观在其中的体现，希望可以更好地理解这部作品。

关键词：海明威；象征意义；硬汉；人生观

Abstract

The Undefeated is one of Hemingway’s famous short stories and is regarded as the beginning of his “Code Hero” image in literature. Like the rest of his works, in Hemingway’s concise style of writing, the main character Manuel and his bullfight are full of symbolic meanings. The protagonist, his pigtail and the society’s scorn for him, the bull and even the bullfight itself are not as simple as they appear. They all contain profound symbolic meanings. This thesis, therefore, aims to analyze the symbolic meaning of the novel from the main character, environment, bullfight, plot and other aspects. Meanwhile, the symbolic techniques in The Undefeated and the embodiment of Hemingway’s value of life in the story will also be discussed in order to gain a better understanding of this novel.

Key Words: Hemingway; symbolic meaning; Code Hero; value of life

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Ernest Hemingway and The Undefeated 1

1.2 Literature review 2

1.3 Framework of the thesis 2

2 The Story of “The Undefeated” 4

2.1 Analysis of the plots 4

2.2 Analysis of the characterization 6

3 Elaboration of symbolic meanings 10

3.1 Symbolic meaning of each element 10

3.2 Significance of using symbolic meaning 11

3.3 Practical significance………………………………………………………...12

4 Conclusions 14

References 15

Acknowledgements 17

The symbolic meaning in The Undefeated by Ernest Hemingway

1 Introduction

1.1 Ernest Hemingway and The Undefeated

Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961) was born in Oak Park, Illinois. He was one of the most well-known American modern writers, who was also considered as the leading figure in the world literature history. He was not only a novelist but also a short story writer as well as a journalist. His father was a brilliant doctor and a master of fishing and hunting, which grew on little Hemingway gradually. The adventurous spirit in his personality made him suffer from endless agony. The first and the second world war have traumatized Hemingway deeply. He joined the army and was injured during World War I. Since then he felt the loss and had a negative attitude towards the world where he lived in. In his early works, his eagerness to refine a new way and a new approach to comprehend life can be seen in the themes. Never being a compromised man, Hemingway’s characters show the same spirit unsurprisingly, especially the boxer, the hunter, the soldier and the bullfighter. These characters can be found in his short story collection Men without Women in 1927, in which people’s resistance to the world full of wars and their dignity are expressed.

The writing style of Hemingway has a profound influence on the literature creations during 20th century. Thus, it is very distinctive compared with his literature rival Faulkner, which is extremely simple and understated. Most of his characters are tough and self-restrain, who all have the feature of “grace under pressure”. So does the main character of The Undefeated, Manuel Garcia.

Although The Undefeated is one of Hemingway’s most admired short stories, it has received comparatively little critical attention. Not many of Hemingway’s numerous commentators discuss the story extensively, and few of those critics who discuss the story do more than consider Manuel Garcia, the protagonist, as a good example of the type of character.

Throughout many of his short stories, Ernest Hemingway develops the idea of what it means to be a “Code Hero”. In its most basic terms, a “Code Hero” is a person who follows a series of beliefs that prevent him or her from giving into internal or external forces. Through nuance and masterful writing, Hemingway manages to turn this simple definition into his complex and deeper definition of manliness and the kind of person he respects and admires more than any others. His most notable “Code Hero” is Manuel Garcia. He is Hemingway’s most exaggerated “Code Hero”. When reading “The Undefeated,” the readers feel as if Hemingway is bashing them over the head for 22 pages with a club carved from examples of how Manuel is a “Code Hero” and bullfighting terminology. In the story, Hemingway comes up with the idea that when a person is faced with social scorn and physical or emotional difficulties, instead of giving up, he or she should persist in their calling so as to achieve self-fulfillment and remain true to themselves through staying true to one’s destiny, experiencing societal scorn, and persisting in one’s calling to overcome this scorn.

It is therefore time to leave the well-trodden path of reviewing well-known books, to describe what “The Undefeated” is about, and to fathom its deeper meaning.

1.2 Literature review

Hemingway is always considered as an outstanding writer by the foreign and the native scholars, and his works are studied thoroughly as soon as they were published.

As the matter of facts, there are not many studies about Hemingway’s early work collection Men without Women, as well as one of its stories The Undefeated. Generally speaking, the western studies are more likely to utilize this story as a proof to study Hemingway’s life background or other well known novels, or show their interests in his hobby of bullfighting and the spirit of bullfighter. Meanwhile the domestic studies usually focus on the basic analysis of the main character, Manuel Garcia.

As for the symbolic meaning used in Hemingway’s works, plenty of them are mentioned or discussed in his masterpiece, The Old Man and The Sea, or A Farewell to Arms, in order to reveal the iceberg theory and the realistic meaning beneath them. Thus, this thesis is going to discuss the symbolism in this novel and study the protagonist Manuel as Hemingway’s first trial of describing a Code Hero.

1.3 Framework of the thesis

Based on the definition of symbolism, this paper will explain the deeper meaning of each element in this novel by giving examples and analyzing Hemingway’s writing principle, known as the iceberg theory. In the meantime, the significance of discussing the main character, Manuel, and the plots are essential as well, the method of which is developed on former studies.

This paper consists of five parts. The first part presents the author’s information, the literary review and the framework of the thesis. The second part analyzes the plots and the characterization of The Undefeated. As for the third chapter, it shows the elaboration of the symbolism and mainly focuses on analysis of the symbolic meaning of each element in the novel. The importance of symbolism utilization in this part is also presented. The following part explains the practical meaning. The last part is the conclusion, which gives the summary of the thesis and states what needs to be done as a further study.

2 The Story of “The Undefeated”

2.1 Analysis of the plots

The first scene takes place in Don Miguel Retana’s office, the walls of which are decorated by photographs and bullfighting posters. Manual comes to see Retana, the bullfight manager, to ask for a job. He has just come out of hospital and that is the reason why he looks pale and does not look good. However, he still wants to keep his reputation as a bullfighter. Retana offers to put Manuel in “a nocturnal” bullfight for the following night, this is a bullfight which often held in the evening and is not as important and impressive as the afternoon bullfight. Retana, on the other hand, would like to replace him for Larita not only because he could get Manuel cheaply but also because he would like to help Manuel and to give him a fresh start. Manuel is not willing to substitute for anybody else. Retana pays Manuel only two hundred and fifty pesetas, which is a small sum of money compared to the payment made to Villalta, a famous bullfighter. Manual, however, knows that he cannot refuse since he is just simply too old. In order to have a chance to win this fight, Manuel reckons he need to have a good “picador”, the fighter’s helper with a spear.

After his rendezvous with Retana, Manuel goes to a café, where at one-table four men play cards. Most of the men sit against the wall smoking, showing no interest in him. The waiters show their respect at the beginning for he is a bullfighter and has a “coleta”, yet soon they start to talk about the bullfights without caring for him.