The festival of San Fermin in Pamplona is the backdrop of which Hemingway novel?

• A. A Farewell to Arms
• B. For Whom the Bell Tolls
• C. The Old Man and the Sea
• D. The Sun Also Rises

Answer: (D)

The setting serves almost as a character that amplifies postwar disillusionment and the search for meaning. In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway drops the expatriate group into Pamplona for the San Fermin festival, using the bull runs, bullfights, and the lively, dangerous energy of the streets to mirror the characters’ unsettled lives after World War I. The festival scenes are vivid, chaotic, and frenetic, underscoring themes of recklessness, longing, and the inability to settle down.

Other Hemingway works are anchored in different contexts: one is driven by experiences in World War I on the Italian front, another centers on the Spanish Civil War, and another follows a lone fisherman off Cuba. The San Fermin festival is specific to the tale told in this particular novel, making it the correct match for the prompt.