"The Undefeated" is a short story by

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

and first published in the German magazine ''

Der Querschnitt ''Der Querschnitt'' () was an art magazine published by German art dealer Alfred Flechtheim between 1921 and 1936. The magazine was based in Berlin. According to Erika Esau, the magazine "represented the politically detached aspirations of the a ...

''. It was featured later in Hemingway's 1927 story collection, '' Men Without Women''. The story deals with an ageing

bullfighter A bullfighter (or matador) is a performer in the activity of bullfighting. ''Torero'' () or ''toureiro'' (), both from Latin ''taurarius'', are the Spanish and Portuguese words for bullfighter and describe all the performers in the activit ...

’s return to the sport after an injury.

Plot

The main character, Manuel Garcia, is a bullfighter who recently got out of the hospital and is now looking for work in Madrid. After an old promoter, Retana, hires him for a "nocturnal" fight on the following evening, he enlists the help of an old friend, Zurito, to be his

picador A ''picador'' (; pl. ''picadores'') is one of the pair of horse-mounted bullfighters in a Spanish-style bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the ''tercio de varas'', which is the first of the three stages in a stylized bullf ...

. Although Zurito discourages Manuel, Manuel proceeds with the fight and is injured while fighting his first bull of the night, ending up back in the infirmary at the end of the story.

References

External links

Full text of "The Undefeated" at HathiTrust Digital Library
Short stories by Ernest Hemingway 1927 short stories Bullfighting in Spain Works originally published in German magazines Madrid in fiction Works about bullfighting {{1920s-story-stub