For today’s discussion, I’m including some prompts that we didn’t get a chance to discuss before our field trip, plus some new ones about the end of the book. Like always, feel free to respond to these or to comment on anything that interested you in the day’s reading:
- Talk about Robert Jordan’s father and grandfather. How do his memories of these men affect his life?
- Discuss the theme of loneliness vs. community. Why does Pablo return to the group, for instance? How do other characters think about or manage loneliness? How do they imagine a strong community? What does the idea of a Republic mean to these characters?
- Think about the end of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Why do you think we have the alternating chapters between Andrés trying to deliver the message to the frontlines and the guerilla band in the mountains? What exactly happens with Pablo and the horses? Where do we leave the relationship between Robert Jordan and Maria? What does it mean that Hemingway concludes with Robert Jordan lying on his belly in the pine needles as he was doing in the beginning?
- Finally, do you believe that Hemingway’s point at the end is to emphasize the futility of war, the absurdity and uselessness of what happens to Robert Jordan? Or do you think the stance that the guerrillas make at the end has some larger meaning to it? In other words, are we to read the end of the book cynically or not?