I have mixed feelings about Pedro Romero. Part of me respects him, since after all, hes an amazing toredor! However, most of me thinks that he's a naive, stupid child. To go along with the comparison between Montoya and the traditional world, I feel that Romero represents the shift from tradition to industrialization. Despite being seemingly content with his life before meeting Jake and Brett, he is drawn to them, to the extent of compromising his soon-to-be illustrious life as a masterful bullfighter. In the battle between the traditional world (which offers him respect, comfort, safety to a degree, and lots of wine) and the urban world (which is flashy in the form of Lady Brett Ashley), the new worlds wins. In his defense, Romero wants Brett to grow out her hair and marry him, which shows that he still has some ties to the world he is most familiar with. However, one could argue that this just means he is ignorant about her world.
Personally, I think that Romero is quite foolish. In class we talked about how Cohn and Jake both try to appear agressive, courageous, stoic... masculine. However, I also see Romero as trying to establish his masculinity. For me, he fails at this. When Robert Cohn confronts him and Brett, Romero is an idiot. Cohn destroys him in a fight--completely overpowering Romero so that one can hardly call it a fight--but then asks for forgiveness and refuses to continue massacring Romero. I see this act of peace (albeit following an act of violence) as a very manly thing.. being the bigger man! However, Romero wants to "defend his honor" or something stupid like that, so he hits Cohn, and promptly collapses. What does he prove by this? Not much, other than that he doesn't know when to quit. Cohn wants to help him (again, being the bigger man) but what does he do? Threatens to kill him. Yeah, big talk for the guy whos too weak to stand. After this occurence, my respect for Romero diminished rapidly. Perhaps it was his traditional side urging him to maintain honor and never admit defeat (or something eqully misguided), but I think it was his stupid side. I was angry when Brett stayed with him, comforting him and tending to his wounds. Even someone as undeserving as her should have someone better than Romero. I think that he's one of those guys for whom life will favor, as long as he learned his lesson about interaction with the urbanites and sticks to bullfighting. One of my only complaints about an otherwise great book is that Robert should have stayed in town one more day, just to beat him up again, because, honestly, Romero deserves a good beating. Also, after his threat to kill Cohn, a nice ego shrinking might have done him some good.
2 comments:
Don't you see a kind of moral victory in Romero stoically taking a beating from Cohn, continuing to stand up until Cohn himself is no longer willing to hit him? What right does Cohn have to hit him in the first place, even assuming this would be an appropriate, civilized response to being "cheated on"? Cohn has no "claim" whatsoever on Brett. I picture Romero (who's been all but assured by Jake that everything's cool) going, Who's this guy again? He might understand if Mike wanted to hit him, but Cohn? Who is this guy? What does he have to do with Brett?
In any case, Jake certainly sees a dignity in Romero that he admires; and this is what Cohn is sorely lacking throughout the Spanish chapters.
Now that I try to picture the scene in my head again, the whole thing seems humorous in how serious Cohn is, bursting in on them to rescue Brett from her life of sin. And Romero, just randomly getting beat up by the other guy Brett cheated with. It had not occured to me before that Romero would have no idea what Cohn was doing there, but that just adds to the irony. However, if I were Romero, I'd value my looks and health above my "honor". I think he was probably trying to impress Brett by being tough, too. What really annoyed me the most about Romero is this scene was the death threat, since he was obviously helpless (as was Cohn, to a degree).
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