Pamplona Summary

The novel takes place in Europe after World War I and is narrated by Jake Barnes. Jake is a World War I veteran who was left stagnant by a plane crash. Jake leaves the military and becomes a journalist in Paris. Jake begins this novel by describing his civilian friend, Robert Cohn. Cohn, like Jake, is an American expatriate living in Paris. Cohn is a Jewish writer who has recently published a novel and was a middleweight boxing champion in college at Princeton. Cohn lives with a woman named Frances Clyne, who only loves him for his money. After reading a book that romanticizes travel Cohn realizes that he's wasting his life. Cohn visits Jake at his office to beg him to go to South America with him. Jake refuses Cohn and says that bullfighters are the only people who waste their …show more content…
In Pamplona, they stay at a hotel owned by Montoya, a man who loves bullfighting and appreciates Jake's own love of the sport. Jake, Bill, Cohn, Mike, and Brett all meet up. They go to watch the unloading of the bulls, and see a bull kill a steer. Afterward, Mike compares Cohn to the steer because Cohn won't stop following Brett around. The festivities begin, and Pamplona is filled with drinking and dancing. During the bullfights on the first day, a nineteen-year-old bullfighter named Pedro Romero especially stands out. Brett is mesmerized by the violence of the fight and Romero’s abilities. Mike starts a drunken altercation with Cohn, both men are fighting for Brett, and Brett leaves with Romero. At the bullfight that afternoon, a bullfighter who had come out of retirement named Belmonte fails to live up to his reputation and is jeered by the crowd. But Romero fights magnificently, and the crowd adores him. Later that night, Jake learns from Mike that Romero and Brett have left Pamplona together. Jake decides to lay low in San Sebastian rather than return to