When Jake sees the young bullfighter, Pedro Romero, he thinks, “He was the best-looking boy I have ever seen.” This description could make Romero a representative of the natural world that is being threatened by the encroachment of Jake and other American expatriates. Romero represents something from the Old World that is beautiful, strong and natural, but Jake and his friends seem to represent something that is overly-civilized and decadent, in keeping with Bill’s description of expatriates.
The Sun Also Rises – 10
Harriet Jacobs describes a man who, upon gaining control of his new wife’s possessions, wastes the money, impregnates one of her slaves twice, separates the black family members from each other and dies after a night of debauchery. With her comment in response to this situation, Jacobs seems to be making an appeal to white readers, much like Douglass did, about the ways in which they were degraded by slavery. She writes “Had it not been for slavery, he would have been a better man, and his wife a happier woman.”