For Whom the Bell Tolls


For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.
It was published just after the end of the Spanish Civil War, whose general lines were well known at the time. It assumes the reader knows that the war was between the Second Spanish Republic government, supported by the Soviet Union, which many foreigners like Robert went to Spain to help, and a successful, Nationalist faction, supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. It was commonly viewed as the dress rehearsal for the Second World War. In 1940, the year the book was published, the United States had not yet entered the war, which had begun on Sept. 1, 1939, with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland.
The novel is regarded as one of Hemingway's best works, along with The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and The Old Man and the Sea.

Background

Ernest Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls in Havana, Cuba; Key West, Florida; and Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1939. In Cuba, he lived in the Hotel Ambos Mundos where he worked on the manuscript. The novel was finished in July 1940 at the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel in New York City and published in October. It is based on Hemingway's experiences during the Spanish Civil War and features an American protagonist, named Robert Jordan, who fights with Spanish guerillas for the Republicans. The characters in the novel include those who are purely fictional, those based on real people but fictionalized, and those who were actual figures in the war. Set in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range between Madrid and Segovia, the action takes place during four days and three nights. For Whom the Bell Tolls became a Book of the Month Club choice, sold half a million copies within months, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and became a literary triumph for Hemingway. Published on 21 October 1940, the first edition print run was 75,000 copies priced at $2.75.

Title

The book's title is taken from the metaphysical poet John Donne's series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness published in 1624 as Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, specifically. Hemingway quotes part of the meditation in the book's epigraph. Donne refers to the practice of funeral tolling, universal in his time.
No man is an Island, intire of it selfe; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

The point made by the choice of title and epigraph is that Spain's change from democracy to fascist dictatorship, the outcome of the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, is important to and affects everyone, not just Spaniards. Furthermore, the title and epigraph can be interpreted as a reference to the themes of death within the novel, particularly between the characters of Robert Jordan and Anselmo.

Plot summary

The novel graphically describes the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. It is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. It draws on Hemingway's own experiences in the Spanish Civil War as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance.
Jordan is an American who lived in prewar Spain and fights as an irregular soldier for the Republic against Francisco Franco's fascist forces. An experienced dynamiter, he is ordered by a Soviet general to travel behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge with the aid of a band of local anti-fascist guerrillas to prevent enemy troops from responding to an upcoming offensive. On his mission, Jordan meets the rebel Anselmo, who brings him to the hidden guerrilla camp and initially acts as an intermediary between Jordan and the other guerrilla fighters.
In the camp, Jordan encounters María, a young Spanish woman whose life has been shattered by her parents' execution and her rape at the hands of the Falangists at the outbreak of the war. His strong sense of duty clashes with both the unwillingness of the guerrilla leader Pablo to commit to an operation that would endanger himself and his band and Jordan's own new-found lust for life, which arises from his love for María. Pablo's wife, Pilar, with the support of the other guerillas, displaces Pablo as the group leader and pledges the allegiance of the guerrillas to Jordan's mission. When another band of anti-fascist guerrillas, led by El Sordo, is surrounded and killed during a raid they conducted in support of Jordan's mission, Pablo steals the dynamite detonators and exploder, hoping to prevent the demolition and to avoid fascist reprisals. Although he disposes of the detonators and exploder by throwing them down a gorge into the river, Pablo regrets abandoning his comrades and returns to assist in the operation.
The enemy, apprised of the coming offensive, has prepared to ambush it in force and it seems unlikely that the blown bridge will do much to prevent a rout. However, Jordan understands that he must still demolish the bridge unless he receives explicit orders to the contrary. Lacking the detonation equipment stolen by Pablo, Jordan devises an alternative method: exploding the dynamite by using hand grenades with wires attached so that their pins can be pulled from a distance. The improvised plan is considerably more dangerous as the guerillas must be nearer to the explosion. While Pilar, Pablo, and other guerrillas attack the posts at the two ends of the bridge, Jordan and Anselmo plant and detonate the dynamite, costing Anselmo his life when he is hit by a piece of shrapnel. While escaping, Jordan is maimed when a tank shoots his horse out from under him. Knowing that his wound is so severe that it is highly unlikely that he will survive and that he would slow the others down, he bids farewell to María and ensures her escape to safety with the surviving guerrillas. He refuses Agustín's offer to shoot him and lies waiting in agony, hoping to kill an enemy officer and delay the pursuit of his comrades before he dies. The narrative ends just before Jordan launches his ambush.

Characters

is a primary theme of the novel. When Robert Jordan is assigned to blow up the bridge to coincide with the commencement of the Republic's early attack, he knows that he may not survive. Pablo, Pilar, and El Sordo, leaders of the Republican guerrilla bands, agree. Almost all of the main characters in the book contemplate their own deaths. Before the operation, Pilar reads Robert Jordan's palm, and after seeing it, refuses to comment on what she saw, foreshadowing his untimely demise.
, Havana, Ernest Hemingway's first residence in Cuba where the first chapter of For Whom the Bell Tolls was written. Much of the rest was written later in his home near Havana, Finca Vigía
Camaraderie and sacrifice in the face of death abound throughout the novel. Robert Jordan, Anselmo, and others are ready to do "as all good men should:" to make the ultimate sacrifice. The oft-repeated embracing gesture reinforces this sense of close companionship in the face of death. An incident involving the death of the family of the character Joaquín serves as an example of this theme; having learned of this tragedy, Joaquín's comrades embrace and comfort him, saying they now are his family. Surrounding this love for one's comrades is the love for the Spanish soil. A love of place, of the senses, and of life itself is represented by the pine needle forest floor, both at the beginning and, poignantly, at the end of the novel, when Robert Jordan awaits his death feeling "his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest."
Suicide always looms as an alternative to suffering, since likely if captured as prisoners they would be tortured. Many of the characters, including Robert Jordan, would prefer death over capture and are prepared to kill themselves, be killed, or kill to avoid it. As the book ends, Robert Jordan, wounded and unable to travel with his companions, awaits a final ambush that will end his life. He prepares himself against the cruel outcomes of suicide to avoid capture, or inevitable torture for the extraction of information and death at the hands of the enemy. Still, he hopes to avoid suicide partly because his father, whom he views as a coward, committed suicide. Robert Jordan understands suicide but does not approve of it, and thinks that "you have to be awfully occupied with yourself to do a thing like that."
The novel explores political ideology and the nature of bigotry. After noticing how he so easily employed the convenient catch-phrase "enemy of the people," Jordan moves swiftly into the subjects and opines, "To be bigoted you have to be absolutely sure that you are right and nothing makes that surety and righteousness like continence. Continence is the foe of heresy." Later in the book, Robert Jordan explains the threat of fascism in his own country. "Robert Jordan, wiping out the stew bowl with bread, explained how the income tax and inheritance tax worked. 'But the big estates remain. Also, there are taxes on the land,' he said.
'But surely the big proprietors and the rich will make a revolution against such taxes. Such taxes appear to me to be revolutionary. They will revolt against the government when they see that they are threatened, exactly as the fascists have done here,' Primitivo said.
'It is possible.'
'Then you will have to fight in your country as we fight here.'
'Yes, we will have to fight.'
'But are there not many fascists in your country?'
'There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.'” In the same conversation, he also acknowledges that there are populist policies right in America, namely homesteading, which was widely used by American settlers to settle the West from 1863 onward: "Robert Jordan explained the process of homesteading. He had never thought of it before as an agrarian reform.
'That is magnificent,' Primitivo said. 'Then you have a Communism in your country?'

'No. That is done under the Republic.'"
Divination emerges as an alternative means of perception. Pilar, "Pablo's woman," is a reader of palms and more. When Robert Jordan questions her true abilities, she replies, "Because thou art a miracle of deafness... It is not that thou art stupid. Thou art simply deaf. One who is deaf cannot hear music. Neither can he hear the radio. So he might say, never having heard them, that such things do not exist."

Imagery

Hemingway frequently used images to produce the dense atmosphere of violence and death for which his books are renowned; the main image of For Whom the Bell Tolls is the automatic weapon. As he had done in A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway employs the fear of modern armament to destroy romantic conceptions of the ancient art of war: combat, sportsmanlike competition, and the aspect of hunting. Heroism becomes butchery: the most powerful picture employed here is the shooting of María's parents against the wall of a slaughterhouse. Glory exists only in official dispatches; here, the "disillusionment" theme of A Farewell to Arms is adopted.
The fascist planes are especially dreaded, and when they approach, all hope is gone. The efforts of the partisans seem to vanish and their commitment and abilities become meaningless, especially the trench mortars that already wounded Lt. Henry. No longer would the best soldier win, but the one with the biggest gun. The soldiers using those weapons are simple brutes; they lack "all conception of dignity", as Fernando remarked. Anselmo insisted, "We must teach them. We must take away their planes, their automatic weapons, their tanks, their artillery and teach them dignity."
The novel also contains imagery of soil and earth. The imagery appears rather famously at the start of chapter 13. Jordan and María have sex in a meadow in the forest. He feels "the earth move out and away from under them." Then afterwards he asks María, "Did thee feel the earth move?", to which she responds affirmatively. Variants of this phrase have become a cultural cliché, often used humorously.

Literary significance and critical reaction

On November 5, 2019, the BBC News listed For Whom the Bell Tolls on its list of the 100 most influential novels.

Language

Since its publication, the prose style and dialogue in Hemingway's novel have been the source of controversy and some negative critical reaction. For example, Edmund Wilson, in a tepid review, noted the encumbrance of "a strange atmosphere of literary medievalism" in the relationship between Robert Jordan and Maria. This stems in part from a distinctive feature of the novel, namely Hemingway's extensive use of archaisms, implied literal translations, and false friends to convey the "feel" of the Spanish spoken by his characters. Thus, Hemingway uses "thou", archaic in English, to communicate the important difference in Spanish between the "familiar" pronoun "tú" and the "formal" "usted".
Additionally, much of the dialogue in the novel is an implied direct translation from Spanish, producing an often strained English equivalent. For example, Hemingway uses the construction "what passes that," which is an implied translation of the Spanish construction qué pasa que. This translation extends to the use of linguistic "false friends", such as "rare" instead of "strange" and "syndicate" instead of trade union.
In another odd stylistic variance, Hemingway referred to foul language with "unprintable" and "obscenity" and substitutes "muck" for fuck in the dialogue and thoughts of the characters although foul language is used freely in Spanish even when its equivalent is censored in English. The Spanish expression of exasperation me cago en la leche repeatedly recurs throughout the novel, translated by Hemingway as "I obscenity in the milk."

Narrative style

The book is written in the third-person limited omniscient narrative mode. The action and dialogue are punctuated by extensive thought sequences told from the viewpoint of Robert Jordan. The novel also contains thought sequences of other characters, including Pilar and Anselmo. The thought sequences are more extensive than in Hemingway's earlier fiction, notably A Farewell to Arms, and are an important narrative device to explore the principal themes of the novel.

Pulitzer Prize controversy

In 1941, the Pulitzer Prize committee for letters unanimously recommended For Whom the Bell Tolls be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for that year. The Pulitzer Board agreed. However, Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University and ex officio head of the Pulitzer board at that time, found the novel offensive and persuaded the board to reverse its determination; no award was given for the novel that year.

In Spain

In 1944, the book was first published in Spanish by an Argentinian publishing house, Editorial Claridad, with many subsequent editions produced either in Argentina or in Mexico. In Spain, it was initially viewed very suspiciously by the Francoist censorship office; in 1942–43 the Spanish diplomatic corps went to great lengths in trying to influence the final edit of the Hollywood film based on the novel, which was not permitted to be shown in Spanish cinemas. Since 1953, when The Old Man and the Sea was published in Madrid, most of Hemingway's stories and novels had been published in Spain. However, this was not the case with For Whom the Bell Tolls, although the novel was at times discussed in the press. Prohibition of the book's publishing was only rescinded in late 1968. By the end of the year Por quién doblan las campanas had been published by Editorial Planeta.

Allusions/references to actual events

The novel takes place in late May 1937, during the second year of the Spanish Civil War. References made to Valladolid, Segovia, El Escorial and Madrid suggest the novel takes place within the build-up to the Republican attempt to relieve the siege of Madrid.
The earlier battle of Guadalajara and the general chaos and disorder serve as a backdrop to the novel: Robert Jordan notes, for instance, that he follows the Communists because of their superior discipline, an allusion to the split and infighting between anarchist and communist factions on the Republican side.
The famous and pivotal scene described in Chapter 10, in which Pilar describes the execution of various fascist figures in her village, is drawn from events that took place in Ronda in 1936. Although Hemingway later claimed to have completely fabricated the scene, he in fact drew upon the events at Ronda, embellishing the event by imagining an execution line leading up to the cliff face.
A number of actual figures that played a role in the Spanish Civil War are also referred to in the book, including:
In 2019, Dav Pilkey adapted the title and story of For whom the bell tolls to make Dog Man, For whom the ball rolls.

Footnotes