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Diego Guevara
Professor Jillian Canode
English Composition II
24 October 2013
Are Pain and Suffering Fun?
Bullfighting, a so-called artistic spectacle and cultural show, has been practiced for
centuries, and it arrived to South America with the Spanish conquistadors. Such a display of
violence is still rehearsed in many parts of Peru, such as Cajamarca or Lima. Many people attend
this type of event in order to have fun and enjoy the exhibition, yet what they enjoy are
moments of pain and suffering inflicted on innocent and stressed animals. Not only do toreros,
the main character in the bullfight, inflict direct damage and cause agony to bulls, but also they
can inflict more direct and indirect damage to other participants of the bullfight. Since
bullfighting is an archaic, counterproductive, violent, and useless activity, it should be banned in
all its expressions because it exhibits unnecessary physical suffering to innocent animals and
sometimes to the matadors or even to some members from the audience.
Firstly, lets talk about bullfighting as a whole show or cultural activity. Bullfighting
should be prohibited because, in spite of being a so called entertaining show, it only represents
explicit violence. If we analyze a bullfight, then we will be able to see that the torero does mainly
two things, which are as follows: mocking the unfortunate bull, and killing him at the end of the
bullfight. During the entire bullfight, violence is not censured at all, not only once or not even the
most painful moments. People in favor of bullfighting claim that bullfights are beautiful
performances of art and culture which represent the superiority of the man over animals.
Nevertheless, it is important to consider the proportionality of forces that participate, the power
each part has in comparison to the other part, in bullfights. If we were to talk about a spectacle in
which the superiority of man over animals is presented, then how come in bullfights many men,
not one man, attack and torture only one bull? Or if we want a show to demonstrate that the man

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has marked superiority over animals, then shouldnt we try something that force the man and the
animals involved in such show to use their abilities and skills, like intelligence or strength,
peacefully? Besides the fact that not only is one man going against the nave bull, but also there
is this whole bunch of other men, some of them riding horses, who help the matador to kill the
innocuous bull.
Now, lets analyze the proportionality principle, which involves both sides of any violent
encounter, in the sense of having the matador aided and having the bull weakened. On the one
hand, we have the guiltless bull; on the other hand, we have the bullfighter and the horsemen
who help the bullfighter by giving thrusts to the bull in order to make it an easy target for the
matador. On top of all that, sometimes bulls have the sharp ends of their horns cut off so that they
do not inflict any sort of damage. So now we can say that bullfights are an unfair spectacle in
which the matador receives important help in order to kill the bull, whereas the bull has
everything against him because he is overwhelmed and stressed out, due to all the noise and the
whole context of the bullfight, and he has the tips of his horns cut off.
Furthermore, for those who attend bullfights as a way to support cultural activities and
preserver our customs, let me tell you that not every cultural activity or custom should be
practiced, encouraged, or preserved in modern times. For instance, it is well-known that Incas
offered human sacrifices after any extraordinary event, such as famine or the death of the Inca; as
a matter fact, what Incas offered as sacrifice were little children selected randomly, most of the
time. Would it be alright to preserve and to continue doing such kind of customs? We could
answer this question by imagining a world in which its leader chooses randomly innocent kids in
order to murder them and offer them to some god of his; such event would be definitely unfair
before the eyes of any parent or family member. However, still for those who believe that if we
suppress our cultural legacy, then we will lose our identity an no longer belong to a specific

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nation. This is not quite true because, mainly, we are who we are not due to the customs we still
practice; instead we are who we are, and we identified ourselves as one nation, because we know
where we come from, we cherish and value our cultural background, we expect everyone to have
equality, and to live properly. As we can see there exist some cultural activities which must not
be practiced anymore due to obsoleteness and, which lead me to my final point.
Finally, lets examine the cultural aspect of bullfighting. Everybody knows that a cultural
activity is supposed to bring positive effects on its participants and spectators. However, can we
list positive effects on participants and spectators of bullfighting, an event in which violence is
not censured? Of course we cant list positive effects of bullfighting; instead we can list many
counterproductive aspects of bullfighting. First of all, it is never good to have children or any
person attend events where uncensored violence is displayed. Also, is there any positive effect in
murdering animals for no other reason than entertaining? Or having people get seriously injured?
We should discourage people from attending bullfights, and try to find different cultural activities
to attend to which can be really productive in our lives.
To sum up, bullfighting does not bring any good to our society because it only shows
murders, animal cruelty, and unfairness to animals. Moreover, bullfighting represents an obsolete
and counterproductive cultural activity because it does no good to society. Instead of having
people attend bullfights, we can figure out a way to encourage true cultural events in order to
have a positive impact in our society. Ergo, bullfights should be prohibited because they are
counterproductive to society and they only present animal cruelty and explicit violence.