“Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters.”, said Jake to Robert Cohn as Cohn spoke how low lived his life had been. Bulls and bull-fighting is the pinnacle of symbolism in this novel. The bull-fighting and the bull itself represent passion, relationships, courage, love, and sexuality. Ernest Hemmingway connects bull-fighting with all the main characters, and more specifically with Jake as the steer, and Brett Ashley as the bull and the Matador. Upon reading this novel, the reader will notice the parallel events in the story with bullfighting, and they will see how it places the story in a very different context. Witnessing the running of the bulls, the entering of the bulls into the stadium following the steers, and…show more content… Keenan. Just as Brett does to Jake in the end, Romero kills his “bull”, also known as Brett Ashley. Brett chose to run off with Romero in the end of the book, who ironically was introduced to him by Jake himself. In the beginning of the bull-fighting scenes, Jake passionately describes Romero’s fight with his bull, which draws Brett’s attention to him in the first place. Brett has been the matador with all these men for quite some time, but when it comes to Romero, she becomes just another bull. Romero sees the immoral ways of Brett Ashley, and being the focused man that he is, he knows he must cut this woman from his life. Romero, as the matador, represents all that it means to be a true man, and we see this when Jake constantly brings up the manliness to bull-fighting, and especially when he talks about the way the matador Romero performs, "I had her watch how Romero took the bull away from a fallen horse with his cape, and how he held him with the cape and turned him, smoothly and suavely, never wasting the bull… I pointed out to her the tricks the other bullfighters used to make it look as though they were working closely”. In some ways, Jake is achieving this level of fulfillment and masculinity though Pedro Romero. We witness this when Jake leaves Brett with Romero after her request, internally saying, "He looked at me. It was a final…show more content… More specifically with the running of the bulls, we look towards the bull that killed a man in the arena. Cohn, after having an all-out brawl with Jake and Mike, goes to find Romero, and beats this young matador up out of pure jealousy and more specifically rage. This explosive rage is connected with the strength and rage of the bull, and more defined as the bull that killed the man. After the fight that Cohn has with Romero, Mike tells Bill and Jake, “…He massacred the poor, bloody bull-fighter… He nearly killed the poor, bloody bull-fighter.” Pedro Romero; after having received such a brutal beating from Cohn must go to the arena the next day, and it is seen that he must face the bull (Cohn) that killed a man. Romero; just as he had conquered the bull that killed a man, he mentally and emotionally conquered Cohn. Romero was the man that Robert Cohn could never be, and all that bull like anger in him was gone after that beating he gave Pedro. Mike even goes a long to say, “He ruined Cohn. You know I don’t think Cohn will ever want to knock people about again.” The bull as represented as Cohn, is able to destroy Romero the matador, but it is the cunning, seductiveness, and manliness of Romero that allows him to destroy both Cohn and his