What Madness  is to Die for?

HYDERABAD: J  ack London was one of the pioneers of the American short story. He was a contemporary of O’Henry, the other great master of the American short story of the turn of the last century. He was also a novelist - and Call of the Wild and White Fang, two of his novels set during the Klondike Gold Rush, are widely read even now. London had, from his teens, experienced the hardened life. He had a working-class childhood and early youth, and much of his writing is taken from the sights he had seen and the experiences he had gathered in his youth. 

Among his short stories, perhaps the most widely read is To Build a Fire, a titanic Man-versus-Nature epic. A lesser-read classic is The Madness of John Harned, a strange, violent, glorious, sometimes-shocking tale of cultural differences - which looks deep into the nature of sportsmanship and bravery through the lens of bullfighting. John Harned is a rich American, who was planning to travel to Lima, but during his travel, he met Maria Valenzuela in the Tivoli hotel, Quito. Maria Valenzuela was perhaps the most beautiful woman in Ecuador – the daughter and sister of rich Ecuadoriano-Spanish land-owners.

Maria is a socialite, and thinks that American prize-fighting is brutal, barbaric and disgusting, while on the other hand, the toreador i.e. the bullfighter is a skillful romantic. He kills with a panache – perhaps a person such as that can be loved. Then, Maria mentioned that John Harned should come down to Quito with her and watch the brave men of sport, the toreadors. John Harned was very much in love with Maria, and could not refuse and followed her to Quito. 

The story is told from the voice of Maria Valenzuela’s cousin, Manuel de Jesus Patino. Manuel is the owner of many a hacienda and of many a slave; though, he claims, he is not as rich as Maria’s family. He attends a day in the bullfighting pit Maria, John Harned and another of Maria’s suitors. As the bullfight unfolds, John Harned is agitated. He feels that this is no fight at all. He debates and discusses with Manuel and the others, mentioning a b o u t h o w p r e - dictable the outcome is.

The bull is made to fight without its will, is drugged and weakened, is goaded to fight against five men at a time. He mentions how unfair it is, and he feels that the lessons of the bullfight are degrading. It celebrates animal suffering, and leads to cowardice.

Then, an old, blindfolded horse is brought to the ring to be gored to death by the bull. That is the point when John Harned loses his rags. He snatches a bayonet from a soldier and takes on the people around him, all alone. He is killed, but not before he has taken out seven men. This is a wonderful story about the concepts of honour and bravery, and the difference between two competitors voluntarily facing each other and five men taunting and killing an animal.