There couldn’t have been so much fear, had made a cobarde out of the other one the way second generation bullfighters almost always are? Suppose that? And maybe the good juice only came through straight again after passing through that one? I’ll never forget how sick it made me the first time I knew he was a cobarde. Go on, say it in English. Coward. It’s easier when you have it said and there is never any point in referring to a son of a bitch by some foreign term. He wasn’t any son of a bitch, though. He was just a coward and that was the worst luck any man could have.

From “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway

The protagonist of this novel, Robert Jordan, confronts his father’s death from suicide—the ultimate cowardice. Since Hemingway killed himself, this passage of his book seems ironic. But why should a book reflect the writers’ ideas or be influenced by their own lives? Authors often create characters with sets of values completely different from their own and devoid of any autobiographical aspects.  Cowardice is defined as the lack of courage to face danger or difficulties. Hemingway mentions bullfighters’ behavior  as an example .  But courage—and its antonym, cowardice—should not apply to those who seek danger as a profession, an adventure, or a hobby. These individuals are intrepid. Cowards shy away from unforeseen, inevitable, or necessary danger or difficulty and failed to protect their fellow man and themselves from the consequences. Cowardice is a curse, and as Hemingway writes, “The worst luck any man could have.”