For Whom the Bells Tolls

For Whom the Bells Tolls

By

Ernest Hemingway

This blog is a task given by Yesha Ma'am, visitor faculty of English Department M.K.B.U. In this particular blog I am going to discuss the attitude of Robert Jordan towards the war. and also try to answer this question briefly.

For whom the Bells Tolls

Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is one of the most popular novels of the twentieth century. The novel was published in 1940. The Spanish Civil War becomes a great source for 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'.  Hemingway used nearly his twenty years experience of Spain to write the novel. He witnessed the suffering of his friends in the Spanish Civil War and he had observed the death and the destruction of them which provided the main theme of the novel.

This novel was published just after the end of the Spanish Civil War which happened between 1936 to1939, whose general lines were well known at the time. It assumes the reader knows that the war was between the government of the Second Spanish Republic, which many foreigners went to Spain to help and which was supported by the Communist Soviet Union, and the Nationalist faction, which was supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In 1940, the year the book was published, the United States had not yet entered the Second World War, which had begun on September 1, 1939, with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland.

Ernest Hemingway

Earnest Miller Hemingway  was an American  novelist,  short  story writer,  and  journalist.  His economical  and understated style had  a  strong  influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and  won the Nobel Prize  in  Literature in  1954.  He  published  seven novels,  six  short story  collections,  and  two  non-fiction  works.  Additional  works,  including  three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of  his works  are considered  classics of American literature.

Attitude of Robert Jordan towards the war.

Robert Jordan is the protagonist of the novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls". In this novel he lives for a cause or motive in his mind. For him, his motive and his goal is everything. He is a man with a strong will and also capable of leading other people. He was the leader of a guerrilla band. 

Robert Jordan is an American teacher who joined the Republican guerrilla fighters in the Spanish Civil War. Throughout the novel, Jordan's attitude towards the war is very complex and constantly evolving.

Jordan, who is the main character of the novel, is aware and very well known  of the difficulties and importance of his mission. Jordan is asked to take the help of a guerrilla band, who are living in a cave on the mountain side above the valley. They supported each other for war.

He was ready to sacrifice his life, love and everything for the cause of freedom and liberty. He is fighting in the Spanish Civil War because he ‘loved and believed in the Republic and if it were destroyed life would be unbearable for all those people who believed in it’. 

His fight is for liberty, equality and Fraternity as he himself says.

‘You believe in Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. You believe

 In life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ... if this … war

 is lost all of those things are lost.’ 

Robert Jordan's commitment to this cause continues till the very end as Jordan awaits death:

‘I have fought for what I believed in for a year now. If we win here we will win everywhere.’

Robert Jordan, the hero of For Whom the Bell Tolls, is an American volunteer. His father and grandfather are from the 'Republic'. His father committed suicide by shooting himself. It disturbed the sensitive mind of Robert. Robert's desire to struggle with problems courageously depicts his hatred for his father's cowardly behavior. He respects his grandfather's heroic nature. Robert worked as the Spanish language instructor in the university.

He is ordered to blow up the bridge and he chooses to do so. He   knows  everything that there are so many obstacles in the path of his projection. But he overcomes all his obstacles and keeps his mission or aim in his mind. He believes in commitment and action as he himself thinks:

‘ You have no responsibility for them except in action.'

He does not blame his circumstances. He does not flee away from the responsibility by thinking that these orders are impossible to carry out. His approach is that he must act and he has to prove that the orders are possible to carry out. He himself says:

‘ He should carry them out because it is only in the performing

of them that they  can prove to be impossible, How do you know,

they are impossible until you have tried them .'

In Sartre's philosophy of existentialism, choice has an important place. Sartre writes:  ‘In one sense choice is possible, but what is not  possible is not to choose, that is still a choice’. Jordan too believes in making choices.

Jordan has been placed into a situation of love. He loves Maria passionately. He can flee from his choice of mission to his beloved Maria. But he prefers to accomplish his mission. His final choice is his duty and he dies for that at the end of the novel. For him, love is not a source of disillusionment or frustration because his sense of   involvement in the lives of other people gives directions to his life. Jordan's authenticity is in his commitment to a broad humanitarian concern. Here his love for Maria is secondary. Jordan avoids every inner conflict that may take him away from his responsibility. He reminds himself now and again of his own responsibility. He thinks :

‘But my obligation is the bridge and to fulfill this I must take no useless

That's how throughout his mission, Jordan is never haunted by the fear of death. He is always ready to perform his duty even though he had to lose his own life. He speaks to Anselmo to blow up the bridge when the tanks come, even though he may be beneath it. He says, ‘Take no account of me. Blow it if thou needest to’.

In the end of the novel he states:  ‘I have fought for what I believed in for a year now’.

He expresses his contentment by saying that his life had been a good one:

‘And you had a lot of luck... to have had such a good life. You’ve had just as good life

Hemingway said of ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’ 

“It was everything I had learned about Spain for eighteen years."

Ultimately, Jordan's attitude towards the war is one of resignation and acceptance. He knows that he may not survive the battle he is fighting, but he believes that his sacrifice is worth it for the cause he believes in.

To conclude we can say that by this novel  Hemingway spread the message of brotherhood and humanity and his hero  Robert Jordan, like his other hero, is a wounded man. He is physically wounded and participates in the war for the sake of humanity.

Words- 1215

Pictures- 3