Three Days of Love and War
A review of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
By Julia A. Keirns
People all over the world, from all walks of life, and in all sorts of situations devote their lives to an important cause and are willing to endure unthinkable horrors and die to further that cause. Robert Jordan was a volunteer from the United States who believed in the Republican Spanish Government and wanted to help them fight against a takeover by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. From this three-day mission he learns that love can be found under the most unusual circumstances, no matter how well an event is planned something will always go wrong, and death is inevitable for us all.
On this particular three-day mission to blow up a bridge he meets a girl named Maria and chapter 13 sums up their entire three-day relationship when Hemingway writes, “You ask for the impossible. You ask for the ruddy impossible. So if you love this girl as much as you say you do, you had better love her very hard and make up in intensity what the relation will lack in duration and in continuity” (Hemingway 575). The main novel backstory is the short but intense relationship between Robert Jordan and this girl Maria. It follows the love they discover for each other and the horrors they are forced to endure during these three intense days in the harsh wilderness of Spain. For Whom the Bell Tolls exemplifies life, love, and death through the tragic situation of a mission to blow up a fascist controlled bridge in the midst of a war (For-Study 1).
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois, near Chicago in 1899, at a time of great industrial growth. His parents were well-educated and very respected among their circle of friends (Ernest 2). His writing career as a journalist began in high school and continued when he took a job as a reporter for the Kansas City Star Newspaper shortly thereafter (Ernest 3). Desiring to experience more, Hemingway soon volunteered to drive an ambulance in Italy during World War I (Nobel 1). After being seriously injured, he came back to the States and continued writing stories (Nobel 1). He eventually moved to Paris and wrote for Canadian and American Newspapers (Ernest 5). Ernest Hemingway was a prominent journalist before he was a novelist, and his wartime experiences became the settings for his most famous novels. He used the adventures of his life to create wonderful works of art for generations to read and enjoy.
In 1937 Hemingway became a war correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance and traveled to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War (Ernest 8). This is where his most ambitious novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was conceived (Nobel 2). The Spanish Civil War and the Republican fight to keep Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany from taking over their country became the setting for the novel. This amazing artifact was published in 1940 when Hemingway was 41 years old. He wrote that the idea for the title came from a sermon he had heard which stated, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Any therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” (Hemingway 1). This statement informs us that the death of any one person affects us all in some way, but especially in war and times of battle when soldiers and rebels become like family to each other. Death affects us all and death is part of us all. We should not wonder for whom the church bell tolls when someone has died, when in fact, it tolls for us all at one time or another. And when a person dies, so does a part of us.
As Hemingway spent time with and became friends with many of the rebels and republicans he met and followed during this time in Spain, their deaths affected him in some way. He felt their loss as a loss in his own life and writing about them allowed their memories to live on. It seemed as if a piece of him died with each one of their deaths. He knew them and he cared for them if even in only a small way. Sometimes those fellow “soldiers” were the only family these rebels had left at the end of their lives. Most of Hemingway’s characters were based on the primitive people he met in his travels to war-torn countries, whose courage and honesty were set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this particular confrontation eventually lost all their hope and faith in their cause by feeling defeated in the end (Nobel 1).
The book assumes that the reader knows the situation of the war going on (For-Wikipedia 1). Because of that, the dialogue in this novel needs to be correctly understood in context in order to be truly appreciated as it is read. I began reading this novel not knowing of the circumstances and context and found myself struggling with much of the dialogue spoken by the characters. For example, in chapter five the gypsy Rafael is asking Robert Jordan why he did not kill Pablo. “Why didst thou not kill Pablo?” the gypsy said very softly. And then just a few sentences later Rafael says to the same person, “You have to kill him sooner or later. Why did you not approve of the moment?” (Hemingway 483). I immediately noticed it and wondered why in one sentence formal words like didst and thou were used but in the next sentence did and you were used and the inconsistency frustrated me. By chapter 8 I was too frustrated with the dialogue and decided to research more about this novel and find out why the characters spoke sometimes in formal and sometimes in informal speech when talking to each other. I found a comment on a forum where one person explained it quite well when he stated that Hemingway wrote the book implying that it was translated from the Spanish language spoken in Spain at the time in which there were formal and informal ways to refer to and speak to others. This made sense and allowed me to better understand the reasoning behind the way the characters were speaking to each other. I went back and started the book over and was able to truly appreciate the speech of the characters which finally enriched my experience of the whole novel itself.
When American Robert Jordan meets the young Maria and looks upon her for the first time as he is welcomed into the guerilla camp, he is instantly struck by her innocence and beauty. The immediateness of their connection did not seem to be unreal because of the intense situation under which they met. Constant danger surrounded and engulfed them. Survival instincts regularly bring rushes of adrenaline and feelings of intense emotions to the surface. Instant connections are common in such times. The novel gives the impression that most of the characters are older and ugly – or just past their time of youth and beauty, but that they still admire and accept the importance of this connection between the two young characters. Love makes the world go on and after this battle and this war, life will go on and people will love again. They will marry and have children. Life and love will not cease because of this horrible time in history. They understood that they were just part of a bigger picture. During his 72 hours at the guerilla camp Robert Jordan is forced to rethink his personal and romantic values and accept that he really does love this girl Maria that he has only just met (Foca 3).
Another important aspect of this novel that I noticed was that things do not always go as smoothly as we hope. We can have the best intentions and make all the necessary preparations for an important event and things will still go wrong. As I read about the unexpected enemy soldiers coming too early and causing the plans for the bridge explosion to have to be altered, I was reminded of such normal events as our daughters wonderful wedding in which every detail was carefully thought out and prepared. Yet, in spite of all the careful preparations, one of the most important items she wanted in the middle of the wedding was not in its place. At the time the preacher looked at her and nodded that it was time for them to pour the sand simultaneously into the frame, she stood in silence for a moment and then spoke to the preacher and told the entire congregation that the sand and the frame were still in the car. She looked at her future husband and he said, “At least that wasn’t one of the things I was responsible for!” The preacher leaned over and spoke quietly into his ear and her future husband rephrased his comment and said, “I’m so sorry dear. I should have made sure that was taken care of for you!” Boy, did we all have a laugh at that one, but the point is that nothing is ever definite and plans are not sealed in stone.
This novel is filled with numerous minute details right down to the huge slices of onion placed on a sandwich between the meat and the bread, or the tobacco in the Russian cigarettes and the wine in the wineskin. Hemingway elegantly takes his readers into the details of the moment and lets them experience even the dull mundaneness of several rebels hiding out in a cave in the mountains waiting for the exact time that they are to blow up a bridge after an offensive bombing raid begins. As these unrelated characters live and survive together under intense circumstances there are many arguments and disagreements between them. There is even a struggle for leadership between the husband and wife, Pablo and Pilar, and Hemingway shares the common knowledge that those of us not in leadership positions will naturally take the side of the stronger, more vocal leader.
The characters in this novel are each brought to life through humanizing sentences that make them and their feelings seem real to us as readers. Hemingway introduces us to the gypsy who lives with a carefree attitude, the leader Pablo who drinks too much and has lost the respect of his gang of rebels and his wife Pilar who puts up with him. We meet the young Maria who was stolen from her village and made to watch her parents shot dead in cold blood, then was beaten and raped, yet is still able to smile and laugh and love and rise above the horrible actions she was made to endure when hope enters her life in the form of the young man Robert Jordan. We are shown their resolve, their fears, their strength and their hope. Even when facing death more than once, Robert Jordan still tells himself that he is going to marry that girl someday. Humans might know the end is near but yet we all still believe in the future. We know that death might be the end of us, but it is not the end of others.
Ernest Hemingway lived a tumultuous life filled with love, war, tragedy and death, that included four marriages and three divorces. He struggled with mental illness, which probably today would be known as PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, until he took his own life by deliberately shooting himself on July 2, 1961 (Ernest 12). Mental illness had run in the family, as his father, a sister and a brother had also shot themselves (Ernest 12). This was definitely a sad and unnecessary ending for such a promising writer, but he shared his love and passion with the world through his creative writing while he could and the world is a better place because of it. For Whom the Bell Tolls is a classic novel worthy of being read by all generations. The character Robert Jordan is one that any reader can understand. He too, lived a tumultuous life filled with love, war, tragedy and death. Just like Hemingway, he lived, he loved, he died. Or did he? The ending of the book leaves it up to you to decide.
Works Cited
“Ernest Hemingway.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Mar. 2020, (Biography Reference) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway
Hemingway, Ernest. Ernest Hemingway: Four Novels. Barnes & Noble, 2007 (Novel).
Foca, Anna. “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 16 Mar. 2017, (Novel Reference) www.britannica.com/topic/For-Whom-the-Bell-Tolls-novel-by-Hemingway
“For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway: Summary and Analysis.” Study.com, Study.com, n.d., (Novel Reference) https://study.com/academy/lesson/for-whom-the-bell-tolls-by-hemingway-summary-and-analysis.html#transcriptHeader
“For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Mar. 2020, (Novel Reference) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls
“Nobel Prize in Literature 1954, The.” NobelPrize.org, 1969, (Biography Reference) www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1954/hemingway/biographical/.