How did you react to the opening 10 chapters of For Whom The Bell Tolls? Did you like it? Did you dislike it? What do you think accounts for your particular reaction? Here are some more specific prompts you might want to respond to:
- Discuss Hemingway’s use of language in the novel. Are there things you noticed that seem strange or unusual about the way the characters speak to each other? Why do you think Hemingway made these language choices? What do you believe he’s trying to accomplish with them?
- Talk about the differing attitudes toward killing expressed by the American Robert Jordan and the old Spanish man, Anselmo. Why do you think this conversation is important in the book? (This question will continue to reverberate throughout the novel).
- Talk about the women in the novel: Maria and Pilar. What are we to think of them? Later in the semester, one of the presentations will be about these two women, but I’m curious about your initial reactions to them.
- Think about Robert Jordan’s role as an outsider in this group. What are some of the clashes we see him between him and the guerilla fighters, especially Pablo? Why are these important?
- Discuss the horrifying scene in which Pilar tells a story about the killing of the fascists.
The language of For Whom the Bell Tolls stood out to me for two reasons: the amount of description used in contrast to other Hemingway stories, and the distance created through both the narration and dialogue. Typically Hemingway uses the “iceberg” style of writing and few adjectives— or when there are adjectives they are simple: “hot,” “bright,” “cold.” In this book I immediately noticed the depth of description used, especially toward nature: “…brown, pine-needled floor of the forest…,” “…the dark of the oiled road winding…,” and “…white in the summer sunlight.” The Sun Also Rises, too, used heightened description when talking about nature, but this felt even more in depth, perhaps to show us Robert’s particular appreciation for nature. In addition it conveys very well how his senses are also heightened, he’s constantly on guard. The language used when talking about nature, food, clothing, grounded me in the story in the midst of practical and impersonal talk of war tactics. Knowing that Hemingway had a deep appreciation of Spain and its scenery (and that that comes through in Robert’s character), maybe focusing more on descriptions of Spanish culture-related topics shows us what both the author and the characters value most.
Hemingway contrasts these unusually detailed depictions with an extremely detached narration style, which even bleeds over into the dialogue in some ways. Like the young and old man of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” the book begins by calling our characters only “the young man” and “the old man,” and then switches to “Robert Jordan” and “Anselmo” only after they’ve actually introduced themselves out loud. I thought it was interesting that as soon as Anselmo introduces himself, he’s called by his name, but for a few paragraphs after Robert introduces himself, he’s still called the young man. It was the same with the other characters: they’re all spoken about in a very detached way, both their personalities and their names, which are often just titles like “the gypsy” or constantly forgotten like “Kashkin.” Their personalities are often spoken about in terms of their actions— by the other characters they’re judged quickly based on how they respond to a crisis. The dialogue is almost never casual. They talk of topics that seem casual, like food or women or horses, but its very much still that detached Hemingway style with no contractions, little slang, many simple thoughts joined by “and”s. Here it’s only enhanced by the formality of the “thee” and “thou” language, as well as the fact that some of the characters are in the process of learning Spanish or English. In fact, the flat and repetitive way of speaking some characters felt like Hemingway may have been trying to mimic the sound of a person learning a language on purpose, though I couldn’t always tell. Even though this distance is usual of Hemingway, it just felt so strengthened in these first chapters of For Whom the Bells Tolls versus his other works we’ve read.
Side note: I love how Hemingway titles his books sometimes with a quote, it somehow sums up the theme of the whole story while not giving away the plot. It kind of reminds me of a headline in reverse— he gets a quote from another author that’s concise and tells us a theme quickly, then Hemingway expands the “headline” into an entire story.
While reading the first 10 chapters of For Whom the Bell Tolls, I noticed a few differences in Hemingway’s writing style, compared to what we read in The Sun Also Rises. Of course, these two books are very different from each other and For Whom the Bell Tolls is much more serious and gorey, but simply the way the characters converse is different. In this novel, Hemingway writes in such a way that it implies that the conversations are translated directly from Spanish. I think that this is genius of Hemingway to do and it adds layers to the story.
I would also like to comment on the differences between Maria and Pilar, especially seeing as I am presenting the article that discusses the two women. Firstly, Maria is bluntly characterized by others not being pretty enough, and not being strong or intelligent enough to understand their conversations of war. She is often asked to leave the room whenever conversation becomes serious. On the other hand, though, there is Pilar. The ‘woman of Pablo’ is highly respected due to her intuition and strategic thinking. Before Pablo started ‘losing it’, she spent a long time admiring how organized and logical he was as a leader. This opened doors for her to become a better leader. I would argue, though, that she is a very natural leader and has always felt a strong desire to do more in life than what women are allowed at the time. On page 97, she says “I would have made a good man, but I am all woman and all ugly.” Once again, Hemingway is playing with societal expectations of women in their time period. It is also a great reflection of this character, who commands men by earning their respect, not by using regular feminine tactics against the men (I’m thinking of the power of seduction or quiet manipulation that women would use for a larger purpose). Overall, I enjoyed reading through these first few chapters, and I’m looking forward to dissect these female characters further.
The story Pilar tells Robert and Maria about Pablo’s takeover of his village highlights the terrible aspects and outcomes of war. Pilar goes into detail to describe how Pablo finishes the takeover by shooting four civiles in the head after a battle, then assembling the killing of the rest of the fascist men in the town, excluding the women and children because they aren’t ‘monstrous.’ The priest was ordered by Pablo to confess the fascists in the town hall, with Pablo’s army lined outside waiting to kill them. What made this act of violence so horrible was that it was not done by random soldiers, but by members of the village who had known the people they were killing. At first they were all scared to kill, until one man had insulted their cause, and then their violence and cruelty escalated. A man that had done no wrong in his village, and who was only a fascist because his wife was, was brutally insulted and beaten. Pilar says, “It was a thing of great ugliness, but I had thought if this is how it must be, and at least there was no cruelty, only the depriving of life which, as we all have learned in these years, is a thing of ugliness but also a necessity to do if we are to win, and to preserve the Republic” (118). These people had convinced themselves that this was a necessity to win the war, when in reality most of the men killing the fascists were doing drunkenly and maliciously, with no thoughts of the Republic in mind. The fascists then overtook the town three days later. This story goes to show how both sides of a war are equally bad and have done as much wrong as the other side to come out victorious. The idea of war was previously seen as honorable and noble, yet this example of gruesome violence shines light on the harsh reality of war. We also can see how Pablo acted before he was riddled with guilt, and how no one can come out of this war with a true sense of morality.