In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

S6 ARRAYS
Rivera's dictatorial government by calling the ongoing Spanish-Moroccan
war "a bloody game, or a bullfight" (Unamuno, 193). Unamuno's
bullfighting metaphor is immediately followed by a description of this
political situation as tragic: "They can have the masculinity of males, of
which they boast, but not the virility of the manly, or even the humanity
of men. In a most solemn and tragic hour of Christian European civilization,
they are guided by the mean motives of thieves and they sacrifice
the most sacred material and moral interests of the fatherland to an
undertaking worthy of brawling soldiers from the barracks." [see Male
vs. Female]
What do this "solemn moment" in Christian European civilization
and the title character of The Temptress have in common that makes
them both seem "tragic"? And what does tragedy have to do with
bullfighting? Both concepts refer to situations that imply a specific paradox.
In tragedy, as in bullfighting, the confrontation with overwhelmingly
strong opponents makes individuals aware of their own impotence-but
they succeed, nevertheless, in displaying strength and dignity
by maintaining a particularly intense presence. [see Action vs. Impotence,
Action = Impotence (Tragedy)] Bullfighting becomes associated
with tragedy because both the bull and the toreador are incarnations of
potentially defeated strength. The bull and the bullfighter impose upon
each other a direct confrontation with death, which is a part of life, life's
inevitable fate. [see Boxing, Immanence = Transcendence (Death)] The
bull is a symbol for the strength of life [see Authenticity = Artificiality
(Life)], for the threat of death, and for lethal danger. In Ricardo Giiiraldes'
novel about the Argentinian Pampa, Don Segundo Sombra, these
three connotations merge in a description of a herd of bulls: "Meanwhile,
the herd raced closer in a silent throng. It was really a sight to
see ... It drew near like a single immense animal, carried by its own
momentum in a fixed direction. We heard the dull thunder of the thousands
and thousands of hoofbeats, the laborious breathing. The flesh
itself seemed to produce a deep sound of exhaustion and pain" (Giiiraldes,
219).
Whereas the "tragic" meaning of the bullfighting ritual emerges from
the simultaneity of strength and impotence, it is the staging of an oscillation
between seeking death and meting out death that imparts the
structure of a tragedy to the carrida (Gumbrecht, 474ff.). Bullfighting
shows, on the one hand, how nature, dominated by man, can become a
lethal threat to man. In an interview with the magazine Blanco y Negro,