A write-up of my first (and probably last) bullfight experience.
I witnessed 6 deaths today. Not the sometimes-traumatic squashing of threatening spiders or bothersome ants, but the six deaths of animals larger and stronger than I. Each bull had enough wit and intelligence to realize that it was brought into that circular ring to die.
Death is the only option for these specifically-bred animals. Death is the only option for animals many of us consume such as chickens, pigs, cows, etcetera. Death for these animals means a meal for us humans.
I witnessed the true cruelty (or reality?) of man and that which separates us from animal life. As I watched the spectacle from my cramped cement seat, I wanted to say that we are like animals; we are barbaric and cruel and vicious. But it is exactly the opposite. We are humans, we are barbaric and cruel and vicious. We are humans: nothing more, nothing less. The dance with death, the matador swinging his red cape and leaning in to bring the bull into a chargeโthe breathless crowd focused intensely on the bleeding, enraged animal and small man in a sparkling suitโthese are my peoples.
I yelped when the bulls lifted the men in the air. I yelped and grabbed onto my classmates sitting around me, my only thought being โI am going to see someone die today.โ I didn't realize it then, but I was witnessing violence at its truest form in the fashion of humans vs. nature. Luckily, for my easy viewing pleasure, all of the matadors conquered their bulls. I was not prepared in any way to see a human being gored to death by a bull. After the matadors would perform minutes upon minutes of cape play, I wound up wishing for the bull's deaths to come soon, thinking, โjust kill the bull, get it over with for your sake.โ
You learn what type of person you are when you intentionally make the choice to go to a bullfight. I attended one for my Hemingway in Spain class and intended to experience it at least once so that I could understand the vastness of it and why it is such a hot topic in Spain and the world. Hemingway wrote something along the lines of โyou either see a human fighting a bull, or the cruelty of a bull being pitted against a human.โ Something along the lines of about how youโll know whether you like it or not after seeing it. As I sat there, I imagined Hemingway sitting some rows in front of me, engaged and fascinated with the idea of death, brutality, and the reality of the capabilities of humanity. He wrote about how this was his way of โexperiencing deathโ in a way that didnโt endanger his own life or anyone around him.
Some of my classmates had to leave early; they could not handle the cruelty they saw before them. Others chatted and clapped nonchalantly, sipping on their cervezas and snapping photos with their cellphones.
I feel like something changed within me that day, as you truly do realize what kind of person you are after attending a bullfightโI could not peel my eyes away from the dying bull when the matador would deliver his final blow. I too wanted to see death as Hemingway saw it. I watched the bull breathe its last breath, I watched it struggle to stand up on its feet after it had been stabbed with el estoque. I flinched and reacted the most when the bulls would charge the picadors seated on the horses and when the bulls would fling the matadors in the air. I could stare, unblinking, at the bull dying in the ring, I could watch it realize its sealed fate as soon as it entered the ring, but I could not for the life of me watch a human die a gory death.
The deaths seemed eerily graceful, and maybe thatโs because I have been desensitized by the media. I can watch death on Game of Thrones and then get up and eat dinner without a second thought but after watching six bulls die and some men nearly die, I felt lightheaded when I walked out of the stadium.
A dance with death, I told my host mom. I donโt think Iโll ever watch one again, es suficiente. But that bullfight changed me. I canโt help but feel the mortality in my skin and bones and heart and eyes more than ever.