For Whom the Bell Tolls1 Essay Example For Students

For Whom the Bell Tolls1 Essay For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel loosely based on Ernest Hemingways own experiences in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Before I delve into the book itself, I thought it would be best to give some background information on Ernest Hemingway and on the Spanish Civil war and the circumstances surrounding it. Hemingway was born July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, and the second of six children. His father, Clarence Hemingway, was a physician and his mother was a devoutly religious woman with a talent for music. When he was young, Ernest acquired the nickname champ, which he relished and felt it showed his rowdy, hard-nosed outdoor sense of adventure. He had garnered his fathers passion for hunting and fishing in the north woods of Michigan, a period of his childhood which left important impressions later reflected in several of his short stories such as Up in Michigan and Big Two Hearted River. In high school, Ernest edited the school newspaper, excelled in football and boxing, and ran away from home twice. Upon his graduation, seventeen year old Hemingway headed to Kansas City to enlist in World War I, in outright defiance of his parents objections. However the army rejected Hemingway, despite his repeated efforts, due to permanent eye damage incurred from his years of boxing. Yielding finally to the armys rejections, he added a year to his age and was hired as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, a national newspaper. While working at the Star, Hemingway continued his efforts to participate in the war, and finally succeeded when he joined a volunteer Red Cross ambulance unit as a driver. In 1918 he was very seriously injured at Fossalta on the Piave River. Hemingway received twelve operations on his knee, an aluminum kneecap and two Italian Decorations. After a long period of painful recuperation in Milan, Ernest Hemingway joined the Italian infantry to fight again. These vivid experiences provided the base for Hemingways lifelong fascination with war. Surviving World War I, he later covered the Greek-Turkish War in 1920, World War II and the Spanish Civil War in 1937, the setting for For Whom the Bell Tolls. In 1928, Hemingways father committed suicide. He did not reflect on this event in his writing until the thoughts of Robert Jordan, the main character in For Whom the Bell Tolls, in 1940. The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) followed the failure of a military rebellion to overthrow Spains democratically elected government. The war divided Spain both geographically and ideologically and it brought to power General Francisco Franco who ruled Spain from the end of the war until his death in 1975. Following the Spanish American War (1898), Spain lost the remainder of its once great empire. This defeat greatly increased dissatisfaction and the demands for change grew. People disagreed on the changes needed, however and Spanish politics became dominated by factions. In 1936 the Republic was in power in Spain. A rebellion led by Francisco Franco and the Second Republic began and they received tremendous amounts of support from the people of Spain. They were known as the rebels. Robert Jordan fights on the side of the Loyalists in this novel, as did many Americans and other foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades. As well as suppor t from the people, the Second Republic had support from Germany and Italy. In the end these forces proved too much to handle for the weary Loyalists, and the war was lost to the Second Republic. For Whom the Bell Tolls is the story of Robert Jordan, an American college Spanish professor, fighting for the cause with the loyalists as an expert in demolition. It is written in startlingly crisp, concise prose (something which Hemingway was know for), and is meant to show the horrors and cruelty of war and the endurance which it requires. It is also a love story. The novel opens with a flashback of a conversation between Robert Jordan and General Golz, A Russian officer who is directing the forthcoming attack. We learn that Jordan is carrying explosives and that his mission is to blow up a bridge. Golz is interested in the offensive mainly as a military maneuver and he needs Jordan to blow up a bridge to hinder rebel reinforcements. He knows that Jordan will have to enlist the help of an antifascist guerrilla unit in the mountains and he is cynical because he feels that the Spaniards will only interfere. Ironically, this same cynicism is expressed when Jordan arrives at the guerrillas hideout in the mountains. Pablo, the guerrilla leader, resents the fact that a foreigner has come to run the show for awhile. It puts Pablo in an inferior position where he is no longer the spokesman of the group. Irony is a major theme in this novel and is illustrated frequently in the thoughts and actions of its characters. Pablo is interested only in the safe ty of himself and his band and Jordans military plans are of little importance to him. Study On Rana Pipiens EssayJordan awakes from his daydreams to Pilar shaking him. Quickly he returns to reality when he learns that Pablo has vanished, taking many of the explosives, and their means of escape, with him. He is terribly discouraged but assures Pilar that he can find another way to set of the explosives at the bridge. Jordan is furious with himself for forgetting that Pablo would only be friendly in order to betray him. He becomes furious with Spain and with both sides of the fight. He decides that they will be able to blow the bridge, but that they will die doing it, as Pablo and his horses were their only source of escape. Robert Jordan lay sleeping that night next to Maria: He lay there holding her very lightly, feeling her breathe and feeling her heart beat, and keeping track of the time on his wrist watch.Chapter 37 shows Jordan and Marias last intimate moments together. He feels as if he has spent his whole life at this cave, that the guerrillas are his brothers , and that Maria is his wife. The scene in the cave before the fight is one of nervous despair. The men are riddled with angst and are snapping at each other. Jordans plan which he had thought up the night before doesnt seem like such a great one now that morning is near. The situation has become progressively worse. He doesnt have enough men to overcome the enemy guard posts, and he has lost the equipment necessary to blow the bridge correctly. Suddenly, Pablo reappears, with additional men and horses in tow. Immediately things begin to look better and the task at hand doesnt look quite so impossible. Organized confusion, (p 404) describes the pre-battle preparations. Jordan repeats several times that no one is to do anything until they hear the offensive begin. The time of the battle finally arrives. It is a bloody and complicated battle where the importance the individual is reintroduced. First, when Jordan looks at the sentry he must kill and sees him as a human being- a fact which makes him decide not to look at the man again until he has to. Then, when Anselmo cries over the fact that he just killed a sentry. Finally comes the ultimate irony of the novel. Robert Jordan has done everything he should have done and his mission has actually been successful. He is in the process of escaping with Maria and everyone else who is left alive, but he will die, not for the cause, but for the protection of Maria, for true love. Bibliography: