The Capital of the World Summary

The Capital of the World by Ernest Hemingway

This short story beggins in Pension Luarca Hotel in San Jeronimo Street, Madrid, Spain. The main customers of the cheap hotel are a group of bullfighters who used to be great at that but for some circumstances, not anymore. The main characters are a banderillero, two picadors, three matadors, three waiters and the dish washer Enrique.

Each one of them has a back story which are told one by one. Paco, the waiter apprentice, with his head ´´full of illusions´´ wants to be a bullfighter. Paco is waiting anxiously for the people to leave in order to him and Enrique prove that he is absolutely able to be a bullfighter. Enrique tries to convince Paco about how dangerous it is b ut Paco insists in proving it. Enrique takes a chair and puts some knives on it  to use it for charging Paco as a bull. Paco is able to dodge the knives several times, but the last one he is unable to skip it. A knive cuts the femoral artery which causes his death.

Ernest Hemingway

Born on July 21, 1899, in Cicero (now in Oak Park), Illinois, Ernest Hemingway served in World War I and worked in journalism before publishing his story collection In Our Time. He was renowned for novels like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea, which won the 1953 Pulitzer. In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize. He committed suicide on July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho. Hemingway left behind an impressive body of work and an iconic style that still influences writers today. His personality and constant pursuit of adventure loomed almost as large as his creative talent.