Cohn and Jake are bulls.

In my last blog, I considered a comparison between Brett’s seduction of men and Romero’s bull-fighting. As I inspected further, it seems that the bulls Romero fights in the final bull-fighting scene may also resemble male characters from the novel; the first bull seems to resemble Cohn and the second Jake. Here’s why:

If we read further into this bull-fighting scene, it appears that not only do Romero’s elegant techniques resemble Brett’s techniques when dealing with Cohn but one of the bulls Romero is fighting actually bears an uncanny resemblance to Cohn, strengthening the parallel between Romero and Brett. Since the beginning of the novel, Jake has perpetually emphasized the fact that Cohn isn’t quite in tune with social norms and has comically bad emotional perception. For instance, in chapter 15, Jake fails to understand that, in Spain, him and his friends are foreigners; when Cohn tells Jake in chapter 5 that he’s “the best friend [he has],” Jake thinks “God help you,” as if to mock Cohn’s misperception of the nature of their relationship. One could say that Cohn is “blind” or at least “vision impaired” when it comes to social situations. Just as Brett’s first “victim” at the beginning of the novel is socially-vision-impaired Cohn, the first Bull Romero fights on the final day “did not see well.” Particularly with Jake as the narrator, it makes sense that a Cohn- like bull would have an exaggerated impairment since Jake tends to be annoyed by Cohn for relatively small infractions throughout the novel. Brett’s staking out of Cohn towards the beginning of the novel, as she learns his perceptive impairment in the bar and the best way to lure him in is also mirrored by Romero in his fight: After the first two passes with the cape Romero knew exactly how bad the vision was impaired. And, just as those around Brett—Jake for the most part—disapprove of her toying with Cohn, the crowd makes “a great row,” wanting Romero to fight a bull with adequate vision. We also know that Cohn and this bull had similar fates. Cohn’s relationship with Brett is officially terminated during the novel when he fist-fights Brett’s other love interests, and Romero eventually stabs the impaired bull, killing him.

Now, with Romero and Brett having just finished off their weaker victims, they both receive new, stronger and more perceptive victims: a “big bull” who “recharged easily and surely” and Jake, respectively. In the scope of the novel, there are several possibilities for who this final, strong bull is a metaphor for. However, given that our narrator is Jake, who likes to appear strong and masculine, it seems likely that a strong and able bull would be a metaphor for himself. Watching this stronger opponent yields a much more positive response from the crowd in both settings. In Romero’s fight, the crowd doesn’t want the fight to end because it so entertaining to watch a healthy, strong bull fight a skilled bull-fighter. Similarly, when it comes to Brett’s and Jake’s relationship, the reader of the novel really doesn’t want it to end—especially when compared to Brett and Cohn’s relationship—since it seems that the two love each other. As with Cohn and his bull counterpart, Jake and Romero’s final bull suffer the same fate—Jake’s relationship with Brett is killed in the last few lines of the novel when Brett reminisces about the great relationship they could have had, and the bull is killed.